exuberance
by Ferrum
Summary: Tohru Honda and the other Junishi faced a fact that's completely new and strange for themselves. Tohru x (every male Junishi).
1. Prologue

Author's note:  
Fruits Basket and related characters are trademarks and copyrighted by Natsuki Takaya. The fic author has taken liberties to make this fanfic without intentions to profit. Please remind yourself that this is a fanfiction, made by a desperate fan. I know there're maybe some people that would be disappointed if I make something like this from a great story like Fruits Basket. Again, this is a fanfiction. For you're going to sue me after reading this, you only do something useless, because this is mere fanfiction; I have my own liberties. Make something you're own if you're going to say something like "you're abusing the characters!" or "they don't do those!" or similar things.

Keywords and warnings:  
R-rated. Minor sexual themes. Some parts are extremely OOC. Yuki x Tohru, Kyou x Tohru, Shigure x Tohru, Hatori x Tohru, Hatsuharu x Tohru, Ayame x Tohru, Akito x Tohru, Momiji + Tohru, Hiro + Tohru. Not gangbang, you perverts, I'm not that cruel...

Start: February 16th, 2002  
Finish: February 16th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

I. Prologue

It was a usual morning at the end of March. Sakura flower had been blooming for two days, usual thing happened every year. Usual sun had risen from the east, shining its brightest for the lovely day. As usual, Tohru Honda, the only 'non-cursed' in the house was preparing the breakfast for the other occupants... the cursed ones.

In the other hand, the owner of the house, Shigure Sohma was opening that day's newspaper, eyes falling to every characters printed at the papers... as usual. Yuki Sohma, the other one, was in his room, preparing the speech he was going to say to his kohais at the new students welcoming ceremony.

The last occupant was Kyou Sohma, usually doing some unexpected things every day. Then, there he was, walking to the kitchen, very aware of the random songs the only female was humming while she was cooking. But, didn't know that he was stupid like his cousin always said, or his master's trainings were completely useless... there he was... tripped over his toe, and his body hit the female's who had no idea, and landed on her body.

A short "Ack!" from Kyou and "Kya!" from Tohru, and sound of weights hitting the floor were loud enough to be heard by Shigure's ears and Yuki's upstairs. The older sighed, standing, setting his feet towards the kitchen; the prince of the school shook his head, muttering "bakaneko" on his way downstairs.

"Kyou-kun... will you be a little bit---" That was the only thing Yuki could hear in his way to the kitchen, Shigure's voice was stopped suddenly, making the mouse's eyebrows wrinkling for a while, then strolling again to his previous destination. 

"Bakaneko, you better---" This time, Yuki's voice was halted at his throat. His bluish eyes widened at the sight in front of him; Kyou, *human* Kyou, one hand at Tohru's shoulder, the other at her back, reddish eyes was wide open in shock, identical with Tohru's confused ones.

Yuki gaped for a while, looking towards the eldest, had the same expression with either of them, jaws clenched tightly. He had to assure himself, if he didn't, he would have been thinking that he was only dreaming... but Shigure's startled face was enough to prove that what he saw was right...

Kyou... in Tohru's arms... didn't change to his cat form.

"A---- ah--- Kyou-kun--- will you---" Tohru's nervous voice was enough to break the silence, making Kyou blushed at the same time, and jumped from Tohru's embrace. But still, his surprised expression was still there, at his face.

Well, that was not a usual thing in Shigure Sohma's house...

"Ah, Tohru-kun. May I try?" Shigure said, just when Tohru had her feet back at the ground. A "what?" escaped her lips before the dog had his hands around Tohru's shoulders, trapping her inside his arms.

Surprising. Seconds had passed, and the same thing happened, Shigure didn't turn to his dog form. Kyou and Yuki had their eyes still widen at the little scene.

"Oh my, this is true." Shigure sighed, he rubbed Tohru's back. "Tohru's really a savior... I never thought that I would touch other woman's body beside the Junishis, in my human form... This is... just... to good to be tru---" Shigure didn't have a chance to finish his sentence as two blows sent him away from Tohru; Yuki's punch and Kyou's kick.

"Hentai author!"  
"Perverted dog!"

"Ah." Tohru blushed when he saw the two rivals' eyes towards her. "I don't mean--- I believe that Shigure-san was too--- I mean--- err--- you know--- that---"

"Will you be a little bit softer towards your cousin..." Shigure brushed his head when he walked back to the kitchen. "I will cut your money for the door. By the way--- Tohru-kun, that was surprising. What could have caused it?"

"Eh?" Tohru, face was still ten shades redder than usual, arching her eyebrows in confusion. "I'm sorry, did I miss something?" This time, Shigure face trapped in a forced smirk.

"Honda-san," Yuki then tapped the female's shoulder, taking her attention, as her face went red again. "Did you notice that you'd hugged Shigure and bakaneko, and they didn't change into their Junishi form?"

Tohru crooked her neck, confusedly looking at Kyou and then at Shigure; few seconds later, an "Oh!" was said.

And that was, a new unusual morning happened to the Sohma family, that maybe changed the line, and created an alternate universe to a whole new pointless story.

***

"Ehh!!!??? Why don't you tell me, Harii!" Sun-kissed blonde hair brushed against her pale skin as he jumped towards the older cousin of his. "Why Akito gathered all the male Junishis suddenly at time like this! It's not like Akito! Nee, nee, Harii!? Why can't Kisa or Kagura join us?"

"That, I don't know." The doctor answered simply. He wasn't too good in saying too much, and that will he do, saying something simple, as he walked with the rabbit jumping over him, towards the Honke.

He neither heard other random things that Momiji threw at the stroll. The older preferred to be quiet, not to think all the strange ideas he had in mind of Akito suddenly called all the males. Maybe, Momiji also tried to hide all his nervousness between his own riots. But as the distance to the Honke shortened, unconsciously, the rabbit had his mouth shut. The atmosphere at the Honke itself was enough to make him to be silent... plus the fact that Akito was in there, maybe with the other Junishis as well.

It seemed like Hatori and Momiji were the last to be arrived. Momiji threw anxious glances around the current room in the Honke, where Akito would arrive in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds.

Ayame was sitting furthest from him, strange that he didn't wear something outrageous that day. Then there was Yuki, and Hatsuharu. None of them dare to open their mouth, not even for breathing a whole set of air. There were also Hiro, Ritsu, and... Momiji wrinkled his eyebrow... Kyou? Akito actually permitted Kyou to enter the Honke in this rare condition? Now, he was very afraid. Akito would come any minute, with one person missing from current room, that was Shigure.

Forget about any minute, sounds of feet hitting the wooden floor almost make him jump his perfect sitting position. He ducked his head when he felt him passing the diagonal of the room to reach the place where he could get the center of attention. Momiji was also sure that nobody had courage enough to look Akito straight in the eyes... well, except Tohru... Wait a minute, Momiji suddenly raised his head, this is not about Tohru... isn't it?

Maybe, the others were thinking the same thing as him; as they were also looking towards the Kacho with questioning eyes. Shigure was sitting not far from Akito.

The kacho suddenly smirked, smile that some people knew to well. Shoulders were stiffened at that sight.

"Yuki, Kyou... I heard from Shigure..." Slow baritone voice, enough to make the rat and the mouse felt cold air overwhelming them. Trying not to look confused, the others looked at the three names mentioned... but they didn't have to wait too long, as the next sentence was said. "... about Tohru Honda..."

Same moment, same second, all eyes glanced towards Akito, surprised, shocked, not expecting it, yet had guessed it from the first.

"Shigure said..." He smiled again. "... that the curse somehow is nullified... by her presence only..."

Twelve pair of eyes that didn't know the whole problem completely, narrowed, and at the same time, were eager to her the next words. Nullify was not the word they could hear everyday. But, this 'nullify' word had something to do with the innocent girl they knew to well.

Then was silent. Shigure harrumphed, taking everyone's attention from the leader. He knew that it was the time for him to explain the whole thing. "Today, actually is the first day for students to start new semester. But I'm sorry to postpone that day from some of you," His eyes moving from Yuki, Kyou, Momiji, Hatsuharu to Hiro, "at the very same day---"

"Stop babbling around..." Akito said softly, but they heard it cruel enough. "... you didn't even pick beautiful words."

"Yes," Shigure laughed a little. "What I'm trying to say that was Tohru had hugged Kyou this morning, and he didn't change into his Junishi form, which is the cat."

Instantly, heads turned quickly towards the person mentioned, who was ducking his. Soon, another sentence surprised them. "Neither do I, and Yuki."

"Wait a minute, Gure-san." Ayame half kneeled, maybe he was not sure he heard well about the information, or maybe it was his anxiety. "Did you say that you, Kyou, Yuki, neither had turned into neither dog, cat or rat, when Tohru... the Tohru Honda, that Tohru, hugged you?"

"Precisely." Shigure half smiled. "Glad you understand, Aya---"

"That's absurd." Bass voice from the back soon commented. "It's impossible for us, to be hugged by females other than Junishis, without transforming to our cursed forms. It's illogical for an exception to be happened."

"Ah, Ha-san. Please don't think that cynical, what happened, did happen, do you expect us to lie?"

"I'm not accusing you, Gure-san." Ayame added soon, adding 'neither Yuki or Kyou' under his breath. "But Tori-san's right. Not even our mother could hold us in our human forms, now... what's with the non-Sohma could hug us just like that. Not that I don't like Tohru. But this is strange!"

A silence. But chuckle from the leader's side took their attention and another infamous smirk from his pale lips. "Strange is true... Ayame..." Breath pulled in, and pushed out. "But, don't you think that this rarity should be used as well?"

"Eh?" Shock and rage were held at the same time.

"It's not everyday you can found a person like Tohru Honda." Laughter, vicious one. "Don't you think so too...?"

His heart sank... Momiji felt his world was going to shatter... again...

* * *

Next:  
II. Flower Storm  
Under the Cherry Blossom...  
(Ayame X Tohru)

While making this part, the author's listening to: Jazzanova's "Caravelle", "Coffee Talk"; Masami Okui's "I'd love you to touch me"; Incognito's "Nights over Egypt", "African Song"


	2. Flower Storm (Ayame x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 17th, 2002  
Finish: February 18th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

I. Flower Storm  
Under the Cherry Blossom...   
(Ayame X Tohru)

Tohru Honda didn't know since when, why and how she could be in her bed all of a sudden. One thing she knew that, yeterday, after the incident. Shigure called the Honke and talked with somebody in the other end. Then, Yuki and Kyou were ordered not to attend the first day at school. Tohru, of course, didn't want to be absent, and ended as the one to told the principal that Yuki couldn't give his speech at the new students welcoming ceremony.

She didn't see Momiji and Hatsuharu at the school either, so she thought it might be an important thing they had to discuss at the Honke. It had nothing to do with her, as an outsider, but she couldn't help to be worried.  
She had prepared lunch and dinner for the other three... but still, they hadn't come back from the Honke. The last thing she knew was, sitting in the kotatsu, reading some book, waiting for their arrival... that's it! She blushed, covered her face with the blanket. How embarrassing, they must had seen her fell asleep, and moved her to her room.

Why didn't they just wake her up so she could walk to her bedroom by herself? Two and more questions popped in her head including how to make soup for the breakfast for her apology, how to make it as well as possible in a short time... she had to make sure that the laundry's clean enough and lots of things to do.

But maybe, she had to forget about preparing the breakfast...

"What?" She asked, still with her polite tone.

"Yuki-kun has gone to school earlier. Seems like Kyou's too." A sentence from a smiling Shigure, but not looking at Tohru. She may not realize that, but Shigure always looked Tohru when he was talking to her. But instead, he paid more attention at the damned newspaper.

"Oh..."

"Now, Tohru-kun!" There was the cheerful voice and face again. "You should be going to the school!"

"Eh? What? But--- I haven't finished the laundry--- and the breakfast---"

"That's okay, I'll do it."

"Shigure-san, I can't let you do that! I---"

Few moments later, Tohru found herself outside the house, Shigure saying 'itte irasshai' behind her and closed the door. It was the end of discussion. Tohru stood still for a while, thinking what did she do wrong, so Shigure had done all of that for her. Still confused, she set her feet out of the Sohma Shigure house, and moments later to find herself not thinking too much about Shigure's strange behavior...

"It's spring already." She smiled, looking at the pink colored leaves falling to the brownish ground. All around her was flesh colored and she found herself smiling wider. Spring season meant cherry blossoms season. The rare flower that came once every year was one of the things she liked very much... But to think of it... Did you ever hear Tohru dislike something?

Well, change the topic back.

"Sakura's sure's beautiful, isn't it, Tohru-kun."

The familiar voice pulled her from her reverie. She turned her head, seeing long silver hairs blew by the wind, identical with the prince of the school. "Ayame-san." She beamed. "Good morning, visiting Shigure-san?" She asked as she walked towards the feminine male.

"Good morning, Tohru-kun." She, I mean, he smiled back at her. "Not really, but you can consider so."

"Oh?" Her neck bend. "Not going straight to the house? Admiring sakura for a while? It's a beautiful flower, just like you said." She said three sentences in a row.

Ayame shook her head. "Well, maybe right, maybe no. But I found myself attracted by something else other than the stupid tree."

"Eh?" Tohru titled her head, following the direction of Ayame's amused bluish eyes, towards something beneath the sakura tree, at the ground. She couldn't help to yelp, but quickly covered her mouth with her hand, blushing red until the last corner of her ears. "Oh my..."

"Snakes, beautiful aren't they?" Ayame grinned, maybe in the other side was praising himself. His eyes looked at Tohru, then to the two similar animals, two white snakes, one's body circling another, and tightened itself around the other. The other one hissed... the other followed. "It seems that spring's a beautiful season for snakes as well. A perfect opportunity to attract each other and mating."

"Ma---ma---mating?" Tohru's hands were all over her face, stopping her innocent eyes to see the unfamiliar scene in front of her. "Oh my, we shouldn't bother them, Ayame-san, but.. oh my--- ah!"

Ayame smirked, if a painter wanted to pain the reddest red, they could take Tohru as the model. He put his hand on Tohru's shoulders, pulling her eyes from the biological process that was happening in front of them. "You're really cute, Tohru-kun, do you know that?" He said, face was merely inches from hers.

Innocent brown eyes widened in surprise, as the face went more crimson. "Ayame-san!"

"What?" His eyebrows arched upwards, as if they were confused. "Haven't someone said that to you?"

"No, not that--- I mean--- that's---" Tohru moved her head away from Ayame's eyes, embarrassed. They were so distracting, so deep, it... looked like Yuki's. "Yes--- yes, someone has told that--- bu--but---"

"I know what you mean, Tohru-kun." He cocked a grin. "No one has told you from this distance, no one has told that to you after he introduced some ways of mating of some animals..."

"Ayame-san?"

"Now, Tohru-kun," he put one hand on Tohru's pale chin, lifted her face so he could see the younger in the eyes. "Have you ever heard anything about human mating? Sex?"

She blushed harder. "Ayame-san! That's---"

"I'm sure girls at your age have done it, haven't they? It's no strange thing to be asked, Tohru-kun. I'm sure you'd heard that." He chuckled. "Now, the question is... have you done that?"

"Ayame-san!" Red, red, and more red. Ayame pulled his lips into a smile of amusement. The little innocent Tohru, was mixed up, bewildered, embarrassed, confused, flustered, all in one expression that was completely hard to be explained with words. He even thought that all vocabularies Shigure had in his dog mind, couldn't describe it.

Ayame laughed at the sight. He touched Tohru's pale red nose with one finger. "You're so cute and I guess you haven't." His face went forward and kissed the top of his nose lightly, sensing the shock in the petite figure, lost her words in her throat. He pulled himself to see Tohru widened eyes, smiled for himself.

One hand still cupping her chin, the other went to her shoulder blades, he kissed Tohru's cheek slowly, feeling the heat from her embarrassment. Moments after he brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth, licking the space with his tongue, when he heard Tohru breathed and took her tongue to take this opportunity to enter the space inside.

She gasped, startled. Hand on her shoulder massaged the flesh, trying to relax her, in other hand, it also tried to push the younger to his embrace. The girl didn't do anything to resist, as his tongue brushed against hers, circling it, forcing into a wrestle. Hand was then put around her waist, fingers landed on her hips. Maybe she didn't fight back, because she couldn't... or didn't know the way to fight back? His brain laughed.

Hisses sounds. The elder opened his eyes for a while, and caught two pairs of little black eyes peeping from distance, tongues sliding from their mouth, as it was mocking him. The hell, he closed his eyes back, and pushed her hips towards his.

She wanted to yell, when she sensed something unusual against her hips; but Ayame's mouth held her, halting her to do so. Tohru opened her eyes quickly; that something trying to reach her. It was hard beneath the clothes she wear, and behind Ayame's own pants. She shut her eyes quickly when she realized what that thing was. Her heartbeats went faster when she realized how her reaction towards the situation.

She didn't know how, she didn't know why, and when. Another thing moved under the skirt, and felt the wetness in her under garments. It was trying to have her... She didn't know, she didn't know, she didn't know, but she had to... In an instant, she pushed the older mouth with all of his strength, releasing all of him from her.

He gasped, eyes wide, and unaware at the little girl's attempt to push him away. The girl wore the similar expression at her face, and more... startled, embarrassed as well, confused like the previous and it was there... guilt... Little tears in the corner of her eyes, it was enough to prove everything.

The tailor smiled, more to himself, and seconds after, he suddenly laughed.

Hurt was added into her face. "Why? Ayame-san?"

Chuckles still escaped his lips; he ran his fingers through his hair, as the other tidying his outfit. "I'm sorry, Tohru-kun. I guess the spring's also had some effect at my hormones. It's a coincidence that you're the unlucky girl that's nearest at this stake."

Eyebrows bent upwards. "Hormones?" She blushed again. "I'm sorry, Ayame-san! If I knew that from the beginning! Oh, how stupid I am. I almost think something horrible about you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She bowed unconsciously.

The snake laughed again. "No, I'm the one who should apologize." He walked towards Tohru and patted her head softly, pulling her body to stand straight, clapping some sides of her uniform. "Look, your cloth's wrinkled right now. And you don't need to be sorry, Tohru-kun. You're not responsible." Ayame tapped her shoulder, a sign that he had finished fixing her uniform. "Now, Tohru-kun, why don't you go to the school before it's too late."

Tohru, who was completely distracted, mentioned an 'oh' before bowing again, "I'm sorry, Ayame-san," and then waved before rushed to the school.

***

"Ah, Aya-! How do you do?" Shigure put his newspaper to the table when the snake came into the room. "Tea or coffee?"

"How do you do, too, Gure-san. Tea, please." Aya smiled, and he sat, and slid his feet inside the kotatsu. The dog beamed back, and went to his feet to the kitchen. The snake sighed and laid put his head on his hands above the kotatsu table.

"Tired? Making a new wedding dress a whole night long, thinking about new designs?" Questions were bombarded at the silver haired man as the aroma of the tea made him opening his eyes. The dog slipped back at his place in the kotatsu, sipping his own tea.

"Nee, Gure-san. How're you handling the fact of Tohru Honda?"

The drink was put on the table, Shigure leaned his face on one hand. "I don't know how to answer that myself. I tried to act as normal as possible... But it seems that Yuki-kun and Kyou-kun haven't met her. Maybe, they're trying to avoid her." He took his glass again, but not drink it, just looking at the inner side of it.

"Oh." Ayame smiled, sadly. He drunk his coffee in a slight sip, then said, "I met with Tohru-kun just now, and I've tried."

One sound, the glass slammed against the kotatsu table, and pale brown liquids wetting it in an instant. But the dog didn't aware of that. "You what? Aya-!?"

"I said, I've tried. I failed." He sighed.

"Aya-, you---"

"Don't worry Shigure. I don't touch her more than the novel you're writing." He snickered. "She's still pure. She pushed me when I was trying to enter the good part."

Shigure shook his head. "I never thought--- My, my, I don't even think that even one of us could do that..."

"Well... There're still 9 of us, that if you mention Akito, Momiji, Hiro, and yourself."

"Don't ever think about it."

* * *

Next:  
III. Simple truth  
Above the rooftop...  
(Hatsuharu X Tohru)

While making this part, the author's listening to: Acapella Praise's "Great is The Lord", "Lamb of God", "God will make a way", "Amazing Grace"; wow worship's "Shout to The Lord", "I will celebrate"; Fatima Rainey's "Hey", Genai's "Heaven's not far away"


	3. Simple Truth (Hatsuharu x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 18th, 2002  
Finish: February 19th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

III. Simple truth  
On the rooftop...  
(Hatsuharu X Tohru)

"I'm sorry I'm late!" Tohru Honda bowed repeatedly when she entered the class. The history teacher fixed his glass position and massaged the root of the nose, between his eyes. This girl completely doesn't know that she hurts herself... He said to himself when he counted the times Tohru's bowed to him, just to ask an apology of her lateness.

"You can take your seat, Honda." He grumbled. "It's not like you to be late."

"Yes! I'm sorry!" She bowed one last time before going to her seat. In the way, her eyes met with Yuki's. She greeted him with a smile; Yuki just nodded, and then put his eyes on the History book in front of him. When she was sitting, she caught Kyou looking at her... she smiled again, but he quickly turned his head towards different direction.

Now, Tohru felt, beside the unexpected situation with Ayame last morning, weird... she felt weird. Did she do something wrong yesterday? The only unusual thing happened was the fact that they didn't turn into the Junishi cursed forms when she hugged them. To think of it, Ayame had held her that morning, but he didn't turn into his snake form...

Her face blushed again when she remembered the mating snakes she had seen with Ayame before, and that memories quickly flashed back to what Ayame had tried to do to her.

"Honda Tohru."

She snapped herself, she looked at the man who called her; the History teacher sure was in some kind of bad mood as his eyes narrowed at the sight of the female student.

"It's not like you to be dazed off in the class." He said with his nasal voice. His wrinkled grayish eyes were showing anger, but maybe his rational side remembered that Tohru was a not too brilliant, yet a very polite, and good student.

"I--- I'm sorry, sir!" She ducked her head. "It won't happen again, I promise!"

"If you're still half asleep, I suggest you to go to the bathroom and wash your face." He eyed from his thick glasses.

"Y---yes!" She stood abruptly; the chair fell in the process. A moment after the *bang*, sounds of laughter filled the class. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She bowed again in apology, the class laughed even louder.

The teacher shook his head when Tohru fixed her chair's position, and confusedly went outside of the class, not realizing that two pairs of eyes watching her in a way someone couldn't describe...

Tohru felt his head getting dizzy and dizzy. She don't know why, she just felt that everything that she had done were not supposed to be happen like it had to be. Well, it was hard to be explained. She knocked her head with her fist, "I'm so stupid, stupid desu."

"Hitting your head like that won't change the fact that you're one."

She jumped when she heard the voice, eyes turned into the 'infamous round and blank' surprised look. "Hatsuharu-san!" 

"Yo." He answered calmly.

"You're not in the class? Lost again?" Tohru pulled herself back, and politely asked the younger man.

"It's not that." The cow again, answered with no expression. He shoved his hands to his pants' pocket, staring at the older girl in front of him. "You have a time? We need to talk."

"Eh?" Tohru uttered confusion. Before she could even answer the cow's question, the man had walked from her, signaling her to follow him. "Wait, Hatsuharu-san!"  
She wondered were her steps too slow, of was it the cow Junishi walked too fast. She couldn't catch him, through corridors and stairs, and ended at the rooftop... 

Hatsuharu was waiting; his hand brushed through his white hair. "Rooftop." He sighed. "I wanted to go to the backyard... but it's okay. This is secluded enough." She heard him mumble when she reached behind him.

"Yes, Hatsuharu-san?"

"It's nothing." The younger answered simply. He turned his body, his chest faced with Tohru's face. But the girl confusedly titled her face, just to see Hatsuharu's eyes, while the latter's were looking her with curiosity and... what? Those eyes were the usual Hatsuharu's eyes when he looked something seriously. Tohru just smiled when he gave her that look.

"Had you met the other Junishi before me?"

"Eh?" She raised her eyebrows. "The other Junishi?" Neck cocked. "I met Shigure-san at the house, Ayame-san at the road from Shigure's house, and Yuki-kun and Kyou-kun in the class." She answered, but quickly added. "Why?"

"So, Ayame'd come to you..." He said slowly under his breath. "Did Shigure, or Ayame do something to you?"

"Something?" She repeated. The other just nodded.   
"No." She half laughed. "Shigure-san actually being nice to me that he said he would do the laundry, and let me go to the school first. As for Ayame-san..." Red color crept up to her cheeks as the morning's scene flashed again to her eyes. She quickly shook her head. "Ayame-san's alright too!"

"Hmm." He muttered, completely aware of the sudden change of the girl's skin color. "So he had tried, eh?"

She was startled of the sudden change of the Junishi's cow expression. It had taken her to some fear she hadn't felt before; she took one step backward, as the boy in front of him stopped forward, like a tiger that wanted to catch its prey. Tohru kept on retreating until she had found her back on cold solid wall. Hatsuharu's eyes were put at the sides of her head, now completely caging her, not giving her a way out.

"Ha--- Hatsuharu-san?" She said groggily.

"I thought I'd be the first one. That fool."

"Hatsuharu-sa---" Tohru kept her words inside her when Hatsuharu unexpectedly bent his head and landed his lips at Tohru's pale skin, there between her shoulder and her neck. Tohru gasped as the damp skin of his mouth only touched her lightly, and then slightly bit the space. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to push the man away, but found herself couldn't do the verb; because he was too strong, his hands on both her shoulders paralyzing her to move.

"Hatsuharu-san!" She held her breath; her neck arched, trying to avoid him, but ended with giving him more space to be roamed. "Hatsuharu-san, I don't suppose that now is also the time for cows to mate---!?"

"Hmm," he swept the opening of his mouth at the length of her neck, then at her cheeks. "So, that's the excuse he'd given you."

"Ex---excuse?" Tohru eyes were merely inches with the man's; his was glared at hers... no love... with mockery, pity, sympathy, and then... honesty.

"You don't know anything as I expected." He smirked. "So, as well I can give you that knowledge..." He roughly titled her chin with his fingers. "Tohru Honda, now you should know that every single male in Junishi wants you."

"Wa---what?"

"You're maybe a little bit slower than girls your age, but you do know that you have the ability to hold us in our human form." He heard her gulped, and took that as a 'yes'. "Not every generation of Junishi has you, to be precise, we're the only Junishi generation that has a rare thing like you---  
Our ancestors, the previous Junishis, haven't had any chance to get themselves into female's embraces, other than the female Junishi. And, now, we have the order to have you---"

"Or---order?" One word, enough to give her the clue who was behind all of this. She didn't resist when Hatsuharu claimed her lips into hers, because her mind had flown to another place, the calculation to connect all of the strange things happen to her since yesterday...  
Why all the Junishi was called to the Honke...  
Why Shigure had tried to avoid her in his own strange way...  
Why Ayame--- maybe he had been waiting for her all along...  
And why Yuki and Kyou avoided her eyes...

"Akito-san..." She mentioned as a blur image of a young man passed through her head.

"You know by yourself." She felt his lips forming a smirk through her skin; at the same time, she felt herself want to cry out loud. For the first time in her life, she knew fear that was caused by people she cared, the people she adored... No, she wasn't disgusted... it was a more mixed feelings, of all feelings she had known...

Betrayed? She asked her own mind, but she quickly pushed that thought away; She was so sinful just to think about that. Another flash of her little mind brought her back to the only thing she held very dear among else, her mother. But she didn't find the answer... what would her mother said? What would---

She held a yelp when he felt a hand, gripping her chest, violent, yet gentle at the same time. It made her mouth open and Hatsuharu quickly slid his tongue into her cave, biting her lower lips in the process. Hatsuharu's fingers went under the hem of her uniform; seconds after, she sensed his cold fingers having contact with her skin. The fingers danced over and went to the peak of her chest, caressing, pinching, and playing with them. She held her breath, her body was responding his actions very well...

This isn't it... She cried at her heart. She was innocent, and naive, that was true; but that didn't mean that her instinct could lie to her. Mother! She cried, Films of the people she had known rolled on her eyes... father! Uo-chan! Hana-chan!... keep on calling every person she could call with her mute voice...  
Kyou-kun!  
... Yuki-kun!

She felt dumb when she realized where his hands were going to... the place that Ayame had tried to reach that morning, but failed. She closed her eyes in distress, when suddenly she felt nothing... It was like Hatsuharu was suddenly thrown out from her body... She opened her eyes slightly and found the cat Junishi, Kyou Sohma, his fiery eyes was glaring, fist clenched... Hatsuharu then was on the floor, one hand touching his bloody mouth...

Kyou had punched him away... Kyou had saved her... But, not only that, not far from there, she could see Yuki, bluish eyes were colder than ever, staring at his lying cousin. Behind Yuki, was the little Momiji, widened eyes, hurt, and disbelief. He had almost cried, but his hazel eyes told the girl that he was angry as well.

The cow Junishi chuckled and shook his head. Moments after, he had himself on his feet, walking from the roof. She was saved... she was...  
"Don't forget, you're now also a toy that Junishis can play with."  
Last sentence from the man that almost had her... cold as ice... hurting as hell...

...Toy...?

Then, she realized where she was... Kyou looked at her with expression that hard to be explained. Yuki and Momiji as well didn't say anything. Somehow, they knew...

She didn't have to cry... she had to be strong... she had to be strong...

Her hands were trembling, her knees went weak, her sight were blury... and she fell...  
Tears unconsciously falling from his brownish eyes...  
Unwanted tears...

"Honda-san." Yuki was moving, doubtfully offering his hand to the girl.

She saw the doubt, and rapidly she slapped his hand away... His eyes showed that he was shocked, the other two was surprised as well.

"...Don't touch me..." She said barely, behind her whispers.

Behind her sobs...

Yes, Tohru Honda sobbed...

* * *

Next:  
IV. Innocent essence  
A child never lies I  
(Momiji + Tohru)

Hmm... The reviews are... unexpected... I never thought that I would have good responses. The story itself will have 13 chapters including the epilogue. Hopefully it won't end like my other unfinished fic. Sorry for making Haru like a... you know what... Maybe he's in his "Black" form in this fic.  
While making this part, the author's listening to SMAP's album "Smap Vest", the "A" side.


	4. Innocent essence (Momiji + Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 20th, 2002  
Finish: February 22nd, 2002

* * *

exuberance

IV. Innocent essence  
A child never lies I  
(Momiji X Tohru)

End of March, clear. Yes, the weather was clear as ever, the sun was up in the innocent blue sky. It was only the beginning of spring, and the cherry blossoms just had bloomed for the third day. But, it was not spring, there, inside of Tohru Honda's room in Shigure Sohma's house.

Shigure Sohma, the house's owner, was in his workroom; the computer was on, running the word processor program. But his eyes were not concentrating to the screen. He was only putting his fingers under his chin, thinking about something, but not the novel he had been working on.   
Yuki Sohma, Shigure Sohma's cousin, was meters away from the house, sitting on a rock in his own private garden. Eyes staring at the plants he grew the field there, but at the same time, he wasn't looking at them...  
Kyou Sohma was no where to be found...

The source of the problem, Tohru Honda, was sitting on her bed, eyes were half closed, and it was not like her to sulk in her room all day long... But no one at the house could blame her. What would one do if she were told to be a property of ten 'abnormal' people, almost raped by two of them...  
She remembered Kyou screamed that line to Shigure when she was brought home the day before...

"Tohru-kun!?" She could still hear Shigure's shocked voice calling her, when he found her in Kyou's arms, looking more horrible than a victim of murder. "Kyou-kun, what happened? Did you---!?"

"Do you think I have a nerve to do that!?" Kyou then screamed back to the dog in a similar tone. "This is that stupid fucking Haru's work!! On the rooftop, nowhere else! Next time I see that prick, I would tear the damn cow into pieces!!"

"Did he---!?"

"No!!! Don't ever mention that!!" The cat replied, irritated, voice almost reaching the edge.

"Both of you! Do you think this is the time to argue!!?" Yuki's angry voice called back, entering the dispute as well.

"She cried?" That time, she felt Shigure's hand touching her shoulder, brushing the hairs falling, closing her face. She must be very horrible that day when, even after hearing Shigure's gasp.

"Of course, she's been crying!" Kyou's voice roared through the room, maybe even through the house. "She'd been crying till she had no power to even stand!! What do you expect her to do!!? Laugh!!?"

"So, she knew---"

"Shigure!! Kyou!!" She flicked her eyes a while, hearing Yuki calling his cousin with his name; he rarely called the cat with his first name. "You're not supposed to yell at each other at this time... It's Honda-san!!"

Yes... that's it... She breathed, that was how she found herself on her bed, again. But this time, she knew the cause. She knew why. She knew... and what she supposed to do? She realized that caging herself in her room, not to go out, was a bad option, at the same time maybe it was the best at that case... But she knew very well, it was not her way to end some problems... Not to escape from it.

But what should she do? If she walked out from the room... back to herself, pretend that nothing had happened... was it right? No, it was a fatal mistake. It was the same like running away... and then, she would see the others wouldn't see her as her usual self.

She shook her head. This was horrible. It was very un-Tohru... this was so disgusting...

Yes, maybe keeping herself in her room was the best option for now...

"Konnichiwa!" A voice from the lower floor. She knew it was the little rabbit's voice... Momiji's... She heard the boy again greeted Shigure at his office, before asking, "where's Tohru?"

A gap of time before Shigure calm voice answered. "Hello, Momitchi." A sigh. "She is still in her room."

"She's alright, isn't she?" Again, Momiji's voice

"Well... if you say physically, she is."

A slight pause. "Is she mad at us?

"... I don't know..." The man answered, the words were heavy escaping his lips.

There was no voice for a while, until Momiji talked again. "I'll see her." Sounds of steps. Maybe he was running, and stopped when Shigure called the child's name.

"What?" The boy asked.

Another silence, when Shigure at last said "nothing" doubtfully. Steps' voice resumed.

Tohru shook her head in her room, she could guess what Shigure had in his mind. Not because he had the same sign with the man's... But he was sure that Momiji knew as well what Shigure was going to say, and why he didn't say it. Maybe he wanted to warn Momiji not to do something, *the* something. But quickly stopped his thought when he realized that Momiji maybe could do that, but in the end he wouldn't able to do that.

Knock knock. She didn't answer, she was not reserved. Another double knock... again she thought about her own thoughts... Momiji is not able to do that... She pulled her breath and answered. "Enter."

The door made a sound when its part swept against the wooden floor. A childish voice called her name, "Tohru? Are you there?"

"Yes." She tried to smile... at least it worked. "I'm here, Momiji-kun. How are you?"

"Tohru." He said her name... a little sadness in it. He then smiled back, but it was just the same attempt as Tohru's. It was forced. "I'm fine." He closed the door and walked slowly to the girl's side on the bed. Tohru clapped the space beside her. Momiji took that as a permission to sit down. He took a deep breath, before asking. "How are you, Tohru?"

"Hmm." She just smiled, if practice made perfect, then she would start to practice her smile again. "I'm fine... at least I think so..."

"Have you eat something, Tohru?" Momiji then asked again.

"Hmm." She replied again. "Shigure-san ordered food for lunch, and I've finished my dinner." Her eyes pointed at the bentos on her study table. Empty, both of the bentos. She knew very well she was going to hurt herself if she didn't eat. At least, she knew what to do, she knew the right to do and the wrong... But now, rather than hurt, she was confused...

"So, you are alright."

"I think so." She repeated. This is getting pointless. She also knew that it was rather weird playing twenty questions-answers with someone. But... nothing else to do. Nothing else to do, and they both went silent. Sounds of quiet breathing, and the water in the pond outside.

"Nee, Tohru." Momiji then started. "About what Haru said to you," he paused, his fingers were brushing against each other, trying to calm his nervousness. "And about what he had done to you... please forgive him, I know he didn't mean it. I don't--- I don't like Tohru like this... Tohru, are you mad at us? If you're angry, you can always yell to me, you can hit me if you want, you can do anything! But I don't like Tohru like this! I'm sorry... I'm very very sorry!"

A hand moved to little shaken fingers, circling them and gripping them in gentle squeeze. Momiji lifted his head, finding Tohru attempting to smile at the boy. "I'm sorry, Momiji-kun. But, you please don't think that high on me." She then moved her sight to her own lap. "I heard all things from Hatsuharu-san, and I know that he was saying the truth. I just don't know how to accept it..."

Momiji went silent, then a breath escaped the girl's lips as she continued. "But hitting Momiji-kun." She forced a chuckle. "That's un-polite. I won't do that. It'll be sinful just to think about it. That's a complete no."

The half German boy nodded doubtfully. 

"Usually, nee, Momiji-kun. I found all my views in life from my mother, I found all my questions' answer from my mother sayings... And if I have some doubt... I will go back to my experiences with my mother..."

"Tohru?"

"Well, I guess things don't run as we expect."

"Tohru--- you know Tohru," Momiji half turned his body, hand slightly pulling the hand of her cloth. "If Tohru's source of life's Tohru's mother. My source of life's Tohru." Tohru stiffened, she said 'Momiji-kun...', but Momiji already continued. "If Tohru didn't have your usual self, it'll be hard for me to b as I used to be, nee, Tohru...

"You know Tohru..." He put his head on Tohru's shoulder. "Everything changed as Tohru came to this house, everything had been changing as Tohru do everything for us. Tohru, before you came, Sohma family was such a gloomy house... with people, even us, avoided each other.  
But, Tohru, you brought us together! You made this house more cheerful, clearer! Everyone changed!" 

The boy's hand circling one of her arm; the girl didn't make a move since Momiji started the body contact between them... but, Momiji's touch was not like Ayame's or Hatsuharu's...He was more innocent. Like he didn't even have the slightest intention to do the exact thing as the other two... The question in Tohru's mind right then was... Why?

"I'm so afraid when Akito told us what to do." He said, voice trembling. "This is what I fear. I feared if Akito would take you away from us. I feared if Akito would order Harii to erase your memory... I fear if Akito would kill you... But, Tohru, this is the worst, I never expected him to order us to hurt you, Tohru, but this is beyond everything!"

Wet, flowing, water, flowing, transparent liquids, flowing. Tohru didn't need to look down to know what it was. It fell from Momiji's hazel eyes, through his cheeks, staining her shirt and then made a dark dot mark at her skirt, second, third... Tohru still didn't move... Momiji went to hug her in his little arms, his head now resting at her chest. Still, Tohru didn't move...

"Tohru. I was happy when I was with Tohru. I'm happy when I know Tohru could hug us... Tohru knows too, my mother never hug me... I would never expect Kagura and the others to hug me like my mother, you know that, Tohru?" Tohru didn't answer. "I don't know the feelings... Tohru, that was I expecting when Shigure said you could hug us, to be hugged like a normal child. But, Tohru now didn't have to do that... please, just come back to the original Tohru, and I wouldn't ask anything else, please, Tohru."

Sobs. Silent wail. Mute cries. Un-reached wishes left unfulfilled. But it was honest.  
Amount of stains of tears on her cloth were the evidence.

"I'm sorry, Toh---"

It was when Momiji wept his own tears with his own shirt, when he just wanted to stand from his place in Tohru's warm, two hands pulled him back to where he belonged, circling his shoulders, one hand landed on his back, one on the base of his neck. It was put on her shoulder.

"Tohru?"

"I'm sorry, Momiji-kun..." She said, voice quivered. "I couldn't do anything... but it was the best I could do..." Her voice was slower, lowered to a whisper. "...Momiji-chan..." Her hands clapping his back, moved, brushing against his back, in a different way... in a way Momiji never felt before. Her fingers massaging his shoulders, ruffling his head, in a gentle way... made the rabbit almost cry as he knew the strange sensation...

Maybe it was a motherly way...

The girl kissed the younger's cheek. "Hush, don't cry, Momiji-chan." She called him with that again. Two tears, from him, and from her, joined. "... Even when the Momijis fell in autumn... it didn't cry... why should you cry now?"

Momiji held his sobs in his throat, they only went out off his lips in low chokes. But when his body didn't afford to do that anymore, he started to open his mouth, sobbing wails that he never let out; not playful sobs as usual, not spoiled cries as usual. He cried, loudly...

The Momij was crying on spring...

One floor away... Shigure lifted his head upside for a while. He half smiled and shook his head, a low 'yare-yare' was heard from his lips while he started to type away at his ever-waiting computer.

Momiji didn't know how long. His tears had ran out. His lungs didn't let him to cry more. But he was satisfied, her arms still circling him, and still letting him go to the place far away from the room, to his own dreams and illusions about happiness. A temporary ecstasy. But if he let her spoiling him like that, he wouldn't be what he used to be... Unwillingly, he pushed the girl away slightly, it was enough sign for her; she released her hands.

"Momiji-kun?"

"Thank you very much, Tohru." He smiled. "Thank you very much."

"You're welcomed, Momiji-kun." She smiled back, not forced, it was just came out like that, like her original smile. "I just do things my best---" she halted for a while, as a memory, a quote flashed back...  
'If Tohru do thing with Tohru's own way...'  
"Do the things my own way..." She smiled again for herself, and titled her head to see the standing Momiji looking her with curiosity and hope. "Thank you too, Momiji-kun. I know what I have to do, right now. I just do things in my own way, like I was doing to Momiji-kun."

Momiji went silent for a while, to process the short information she'd given him a moment ago. Not long, before he smiled widely, and Tohru chuckled at the childish face Momiji made.

"Nee, Tohru, there's one more thing I've to do." He said in his usual Momiji tone. "It's my promise for someone else."

"Well, if I can do anything, I would be glad to hel---" She was silenced, Momiji's lips landed on hers, kissed her. Her eyes widened, Momiji brushed his lips again at hers.  
Different from Ayame's and Hatsuharu's... Momiji's kiss was an pure childish kiss, tasted of candy and all sweet things in the world.

When Momiji let her go, she flushed red. "Well, now I fulfilled my promise to Akito!" He laughed.

She paused for a while, then laughed along with the rabbit.

***

"Oh my gosh, this is great." Shigure went to the kitchen. "My feet walking his own way as the smell of your food, Tohru-kun..."

"Glad you like it, Shigure-san." The girl said, as she greeted the dog for the first time since she was locking herself in her own room. Momiji was also in the kitchen, walking this way, that way; every now and then looking through the pans to Tohru's stew and his stomach would growled in some strange language cries.

"It's also save my money for the telephone accounts and bentos." Shigure said again, rubbing his hands together. "A decent meal, this is very great."

"Don't exaggerating the fact, Shigure. It's not like you're short of money." A new voice entered the kitchen, his eyes instantly moved to the only female being in it. "Welcome back, Honda-san."

"Glad to be back, Yuki-kun." She replied.

"What is this smell all about?" Then Kyou entered in, eyes stopped at the sight of Tohru Honda. "---Oi."

"It's not 'oi'!!" Momiji said, half whining. "Tohru's here to cook for you, won't you say something more decent?"

Kyou didn't answer as he stared at the girl, like he was charmed by something. He quickly regained himself when he realized all the eyes were looking at him. "Decent like what?"

Momiji chuckled. "Like what I did to bring Tohru's back!" He hugged the girl's waist, making a 'hey' screamed from Yuki's and Kyou's mouth. Momiji then grinned. "And get a kiss from Tohru, and maybe you would see some extraordinary scene..."

Tohru just chuckled. Shigure laughed miserably as Yuki and Kyou narrowed their eyes in surprise and rage, didn't know that Momiji meant was different with they had in mind...

From afar, the house was trembling. "THIS PERVERTED KID!!!"

* * *

V. Vivid Dreams  
The spring...  
(Hatori x Tohru)

Sorry, no lime scene in this part. About the sentence; 'Momiji was crying in spring', I wanted to make that as a metaphor for 'Momiji' and the Momiji tree. More lime's ahead in Hatori's part.  
While making this part, the author's listening to Kokia's album "song bird"


	5. Vivid Dreams (Hatori x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 23rd, 2002  
Finish: February 23rd, 2002

* * *

exuberance

V. Vivid Dreams  
The spring...  
(Hatori x Tohru)

Usually, Hatori Sohma would wake up every morning, seeing his dark room; and then he would closed his eyes again and slid himself deeper into the blankets, in his cold lonely bed; and his mind would try to brush away all the statistics of his patients in his mind, and or the conditions of his patients, which were the Sohma family members, and or her past with Kana. Among the three of it, he hated the third worst. First, because it was useless, he didn't even have a chance to correct it. Second, because it would make him cannot do something else for some time, and he hated that. Third, because his past lover would remind him to Tohru Honda, and how the recent things happened in the Sohma Honke... what must he do with the girl?

He felt envious with the three of Sohma Junishis, who actually had failed in their attempts. But, at least they tried, and they didn't come home with empty reports. Ayame, he was not surprised, was the first. Hatsuharu, made him a little curious, as he asked himself the 5 W and 1H questions of the cow doing that with the innocent girl. The last was surprisingly, Momiji. He didn't even think that Momiji could and would able to do that with the girl. Either that was a lie, or Momiji was fully a pervert like everyone had been thinking about.

Now, that was the thing he hated very much. He just woke up in the morning and thinking. He really really had to think about his cousins' comments about him, too much works. He tried to make his mind empty, and good, it was a success; and now he would go back to sleep, in that cold spring... Funny, he smiled to himself, why was would it cold in spring?

Something brushed against him. Now that was strange, he didn't keep anything under his blanket in the night.

"Uh---" A moan, from a female voice. Hatori's mind was stuck right there, where he wanted to think what had happened. He cursed his mind silently while it was unwillingly remembered what happened... and a lightning hit him when the visions were getting clearer. He was confused for himself when he heard his voice greeted, "good morning, Tohru. Sleep well?"

The girl startled, blanket that was covering her fell as she tried to sit, she didn't wear any clothes. He smiled for himself again, and that's why he felt cold... he didn't wear any too...

Oh God...

***

"Eh, to Honke?" The three of them were distracted from their works, Shigure from his morning newspaper, Yuki and Kyou from the television. Yuki was just asking where Tohru wanted to go, when he saw the female wearing her coat and scarf.

"Ah, yes." She nodded, full of cheerful air as usual. "Err, actually Hatori-san phoned me yesterday, asking me if I had a problem with my body before or when the accident started. He wanted to run a scan through my body, and he offered to come here. But I don't want to disturb him, since it was my problem... so, I'll go to his place instead."

The others eyed her, suspiciously. Not for herself, but for the dragon Junishi. The same girl, few days ago, was deeply in confusion, having herself trapped in the middle of ten males of Junishi, now was back to her normal self, a too kind-hearted girl. That's great. But too kind that she offered herself to go to the Honke, to Hatori's house alone. That's bad.

"Honda-san, is it wise for you to go there by yourself?" Yuki asked, concerned.

"Well, it's okay! I'm going to Hatori-san's house, only that and I would go home as soon as possible."

If it's only that simple... Yuki and Kyou still stared at her. If Hatori really wouldn't do anything to Tohru, there were still lots of male Junishi in the Honke that might have a chance to trap the girl alone, and they would... they didn't want to think about it... including Akito.

"I just remembered, Tohru-kun." Shigure stood from the kotatsu; he went out of the room, only to be back a few minutes after bringing something in a brownish paper bag. "Here, This is the tea that Ha-san likes very much, from Sapporo. Mitchan went there and I asked her to buy this along." He put the bag in Tohru's hands. "Serve it to Ha-san, but don't tell it's from me. I bet he would be surprised."

Tohru looked at the bag for a while and smiled to the dog. "Yes! Thank you, Shigure-san!"

After she greeted them goodbye, the room was in complete silence for a while; until a dull conversation was started.

"Oi, is it alright letting her go like that?" Kyou put his head lazily, watching the television in front of him. His voice sounded uninterested, but no doubt he was worried.

"I trust Hatori." Yuki then said with a same tone with the boy. "At least he won't try to do something to Honda-san." Will he? He added that for himself only. Silent after an 'oh' from the cat. Yuki then resumed the conversation, that sentence was for the author, who was humming a rather strange song since the girl left. "Shigure, I didn't know Hatori liked tea. I didn't even know there's a good tea from Sapporo."

"Oh, there's a good one." Short answer from the dog. He smiled. "Really good one and Tohru-kun will know how good it is..."

"Tea?" Hatori lifted his eyebrows; he was surprised but collected himself back soon enough. "The tea you served me yesterday was actually from Shigure?"

"Yes, err, that is... from Shigure-san." Tohru said to him; when her eyes met him, they bout quickly pulled the 'staring against each other' eyes, and looked to different ways, shades of red covering their cheeks. Their hearts were beating loudly in their chest, so loud that they could hear them with their own ears. Then a silent conversation was going on...

That was until he harrumphed, making her almost jumped. She was covering herself with the white sheet, and so was Hatori. On the same bed, but making sure that they were in decent distance. "You--- have to wear your clothes."

"Ah... yes..." She blushed, ducking her head, clumsily standing from the bed, pulling the white sheet that was covering them both. She fell, not noticing that the other edge was gripped tightly to cover the doctor's lower part. That simple accident actually was enough to make the pale flesh of her secret body parts exposed. That simple view enough to make his mind flied through the same room, and recalling the experience they had the previous day.

Again, Hatori blushed red, avoiding his eyes from the tempting view. "Are you alright?"

"Y---yes, I'm sorry." She quickly covered herself with her part of the sheet. "I--- I---" She didn't find the words, so she embarrassedly trailing his eyes through the room. "No---nowhere--- my clothes--- are--- are not in this room--- err... I--- that's--- ah---"

"You take the sheet." He said calmly, inside him was trembling with fear and thoughts even for the worst kind of thing. "And... I will wear my clothes and search yours. I think I know where they are..."

"Yes!" 

She quickly pushed her head down as the man in front of him released himself from the tangled sheets. The man looked her for a while before leaving the room. A same question kept on coming to him despite how many times he had kicked that thought. But when he left the room, he realized the truth of that question. If they had done that, what was the reason to be embarrassed of each other's presence?  
He again, threw the piece of mind away as quickly as he had accepted it.

He just passed the door to his bedroom, and his went came in contact with his lower clothes. He wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion, but took his boxers and his pants anyway; wearing it while remembering why in the hell his clothes were there. His mind soon replayed the scene why it was there, and he felt sorry for himself why he had done it... it was Tohru's first time, and why in the world name he had been so rough with the girl...  
He thought high schools girls, no, any girl, preferred somewhere romantic and was prepared for their special time...  
and he along with the girl was completely blind on what they had done, and rushing... All because that damn tea... when he knew what it was, he would go and beat the dog.

He knew where the rest, where the girl actually served the tea and where he had examined her the previous body. He went to the study room and collected all Tohru's possessions... that was after he found the rest of his clothes and put it on.

To think of it... he just remembered that he actually hadn't finished his examination. His eyes fell on a teapot, and two cups of tea on his table, the source of the problem, the trigger of their relationship.  
That's another problem, he thought. He had to clean this mess for a while.

"Tohru-kun," he said, finding the girl had sit on the edge of the bed that faced the outside. She had opened the fusuma... She looked at the yard blankly, sakura was still blooming, and wind blew the petals to the ground. The sunrise was dimly shone its light to her pale shoulders. Hatori fought himself, not to go to sit by her side and kiss her--- he shook his head again. He was getting sentimental.

"Tohru-kun, I found your things." He repeated, making the young girl snapped herself from whatever she had been thinking of. Hopefully about him. He frowned at the thought; this tea thing was making him go to somewhere else beside his rational mind. What was it? A hormone-pulsing tea?

The girl took it from the man; their hands brushed a little while, before she pulled them quickly with blush on her cheeks. So soft, he thought for a while. "Thank you, Hatori..." The girl said, adding as soon as possible. "Hatori-san." She made a stress in the 'san', what she called almost all the people she met with. 

"... call me with 'Hatori'..."

He was reminded by his own hoarse voice the day before. He surely remembered he had said that to the girl in the middle of something. He felt his own cheeks flush. He remembered how the girl responded, and how she called him that name, times after that. "Hatori's alright." He repeated, walking his way out of the room. "You can call me with Hatori..." He stopped for a while, and continued soon after, "I'll be in my study room."

With that, he closed the shoji behind, and sighed. Now, he was thinking in the morning, again. Thinking was the last thing he would do in his state of conditions right then. But, what would he do without thinking? Surely he didn't want to waste his time by daydreaming. He let his feet walking by their own to the study room, thinking... yes, thinking about his new found relationship with Tohru Honda, which was started from nowhere, and, was getting nowhere. 

Why in the hell did he do that? The tea.  
Why in the hell did she do that? The tea.  
Why in the world's name was he confused? Surely, Hatori, he said for himself, you're a fool enough, that was the tea, and the effects were still clinging on you.

Great. He shook his head and sit in the chair in his study room.  
Let me get this straight... his mind trailed the situations the day before, he was just examined her. She went to the kitchen for preparing some tea; the damn tea... and then she served it to him, and to herself as well...  
Then they didn't even start the examination, now he remembered very well. He was just asking her questions, and she answered them back. From the questions, they started to converse about other things, from the little things, until the odd things.  
He remembered her asking about Kana, and himself... and after that, the chat moved to sensitive topics, and... that time, he had finished his tea...  
His eyes blinked, that was it...  
The teapot was on his table, and she went to pour him tea... well, clumsy as she always was, she spilled the tea to his trousers. She went panic, and took the paper tissues from his table to dry the hot tea, saying 'I'm sorry' every now and then.  
Well, that time his body reacted to her light touch at his thigh...

That was it. Hatori shook his head for times since the start of the dawn. Then anything like a vivid dream for him.  
His fingers took her chin and without thinking anything else, his hormones made him kiss the younger girl's lips, rough as he forced his way inside her mouth. She was shock, but again, maybe the tea made her hormones work too... she answered with a similar actions, same roughness, and soon enough, they found their hands trailing to each others body, slipping through narrow entrances of their clothes, before they were getting eager and impatient. That because of the tea.  
His fingers went to her chest, reaching through the underwear, and violently roaming her chest, and she did too at his. Vulgar, when he tried to think of it right then. That because of the tea...  
And when he became more lustful and took his one hand into her skirt, and bluntly moved his fingers inside her. He remembered his own organ aching, and she went to cure it with her wild hands... again, that was caused by the tea.

He felt more guilty when their lust took them even more as he cornered her at the corridor, before his bedroom, which was when he took her for the first time. He remembered sliding into her legs, remembered her screaming his name, and that time, he prayed, the other house didn't hear anything. He completely aware that they made loud noises that time. He shook his head. How shameful...

"Hatori." Her voice entered the room. He felt the change of the atmosphere from gloomy to light, when she entered. Her voice was still anxious and uneasy when she called his name, with only his first name. "Can I come in?"

"Ah."

A short answer from the elder was a 'yes' enough for everybody who knew him. She carefully stepped her feet to the inner side of his study room, and stood in a polite distance from the place where Hatori was sitting. She was also aware that there, they 'accidentally' touched each other the previous day. On the table, there were still the teapot and two teacups.

"Tohru," the girl suddenly stiffened at the call of her name, not 'Tohru-kun' as usual. He was aware himself that he times called her with that, of course, still the previous day. "The tea Shigure gave you yesterday, can I see it?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, of course." She awkwardly walked off the room. She came a while after with, and went back, unusually calmer, with the tea box of tea in her hand. Carefully giving it to Hatori, not to make a skin contact. "Umm... see, Shigure-san said I had to give that for you. Because he said you like it."

"I don't even like tea." He said, flat. "I prefer coffee."

"Oh, that, I'm sorry, I mean," she searched for words. "I mean, I don't know, I---"

"Tohru." He stopped her random words. "It's alright." He turned sides of the tea box, adding. "You surely had to be more careful with what Shigure gives you. Did you even read the inscriptions?" Her head was shook.  
"Falcon tea, in katakana. A little hiragana below it, is 'love love tea'." He read and then stopped, looking at the laughable Tohru surprised expression, as he continued. "Consuming this tea will make a very fatal effects towards one's hormones and emotions. Half cup will make dizziness, and whole cup will make some interesting effects... No wonder Shigure bought this tea. It's not even came from Sapporo.  
"Interesting effects, huh?" He eyed the words inscribed there. "Very interesting, in the alchemist's opinion, maybe. In other words, normal people would call in the 'turn-on' tea."

"I'm sorry. I'll pay more attention!" She bowed repeatedly.

"Well, it's not like I'm blaming you." He sighed. "Well, the tea problem's over. What's I want to talk about is us." She stopped bowing, and lifted her body, making herself stood straight.  
"What had happened between us, is an accident..."

"Yes." Tohru answered.

He caught the sudden change in her expression. "What I do know, Tohru, you has given your virginity to me." She didn't answer, just nodded, still hearing her. "I won't say 'I'm sorry', because that will make me as an irresponsible man. I usually take consequences of my own actions, and I won't run away from this."

"So do I." She cocked her head to one side. "I should have been more careful."

"So do I." He repeated her words. "I should have known." His fingers went to the place between his eyebrows, massaged it slowly. "I don't understand Shigure, and now, I'm trapped into this. I hate this myself. Maybe I'm the one that should go to Shigure's house yesterday and check you from there."

"So, Hatori." She asked, unlike the clumsy her. Maybe like the woman he had been sharing his previous night with, calm, and experienced. "You regretted what you had done?"

His shoulders stiffened.  
Regret?  
He stopped when he heard that word...  
His mind didn't automatically flow as usual to think...  
Maybe because he didn't know the answer.

He had let Kana go, and he regretted it, soon enough realized that it didn't let him move freely, and he let the memories go. He had moved on... but this time, He was told that he was regretted something else.

"I never have regrets. Maybe I do feel sad, and disappointed. But regret's beyond my knowledge, my mother don't tell me anything about those feelings. So, maybe that's why I never feel it." She sighed and then smiled at herself. "Even when Hatsuharu-san had told me everything, when Momiji-san had told me everything, I never regretted the day that I met the Sohma family.  
"Regret doesn't bring you anywhere... I've heard that somewhere. All I had to do is face it, face it with my usual self."

He ducked his head for a while, a sigh escaped his lips, and he stood up, and patted her shoulder. "Thank you." He smiled, for her.

"You're welcomed." She reached his hand on her shoulder, and held it with one of his hand. Unconsciously, he brought her head to his chest, and embraced her with awareness, not with blind lust like what he had done before.

"So, what would you say to the others?" He asked; he felt she snuggled her head under his chin. "About us, I mean."

"I don't know." Tohru answered honestly. Hatori was maybe brilliant, but true that he didn't have answers for everything. She imagined telling the others about that. Shigure probably wouldn't be surprised. But, his mind swum to Yuki and Kyou... What would they comment be. How would they act in front of her, when she told them?

"Are you alright?" Her mind stopped when Hatori asked her.

"Yes. I'm just thinking..." She replied. Hatori let her go and tapped her head gently.

"Let's go." He said slowly, turning his body. "I'll drive you back to Shigure's house." That time, when he met Shigure, he didn't know he should hit the dog, or thank him...

* * *

VI. Behind the Curtains  
I don't see anything...  
(Ritsu + Tohru)

I made a Toriru for a present for my birthday (LOL). This fic will *not* be a Toriru, it was a temporary thing (Or you want it to be a Toriru?)   
When making this part, the author's listening to Ken Hirai's "Kiss of Life", Kome Kome Club's "True Love", Deen's "Yume de aruyouni", Oda Kazumasa's "Love Story wa totsuzen ni", and Zone of the Ender's "Flowing Destiny", "Kiss me Sunlights"


	6. Behind the curtains (Ritsu + Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue. This part contains Toriru (Hatori x Tohru).

Start: February 23rd, 2002  
Finish: February 25th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

VI. Behind the Curtains  
I didn't see anything...  
(Ritsu + Tohru)

Ritsu asked himself why was he there, walking in the middle of the night. Oh, of course, he sometimes confused by his own foolishness. He didn't know that because he was genetically stupid, or because the cursed spirit that lived inside him, the monkey.   
He was in his house in the Sohma family complex, when he got a... a what? He stopped, pretending to fix the hands of his woman's kimono, while in his mind, he was thinking what he wanted to think... four brushes to his clean kimono, he then realized that he had just received a phone call from Shigure's house, asking him to search Tohru in Hatori's house. He might be stupid, but he wasn't a fool enough to not recognize the anxious tone of Yuki's voice...  
Well, the mouse was anxious because he might had wanted to go to the toilet when he decide to call the monkey... or was he anxious that no one had prepared dinner for them? Whatever the answer was, he must search for Tohru. The *must* word was stressed at the mouse voice.

Why would the mouse ask him to search for Tohru in Hatori's house? Then a thought came through him, and he soon realized that his house was the closest with Hatori in the Sohma complex. Thinking about it more deeper, why didn't he call the dragon instead of him? The mouse should know that he 'was' stupid and dazed easily, like what he was doing, stopping again, to think... Noticing that he had been standing there too long, he rushed to the doctor's house, brushing all the thoughts came into his mind.

Dark. That was the first thing came in his mind when the older man's house was came into sight. Of course, Hatori was alone in his house, knowing his habit, he did know that the older man liked darkness. But he had never seen Hatori's house darker than that night. At least, there would be a small piece of light from his study room. But there was none, nothing at all.

He stopped himself in front of the door. He saw Hatori's car in the yard that afternoon, so he knew that Hatori hadn't gone anywhere. That meant that he was still in his house. He pushed his hands to open the door to his house, only to pulled them back again, because of... again, his thoughts. He was afraid to make the older man angry... he was afraid to make 'anyone' angry. Until he gathered all of his courage and slided the sliding door. He could always apologize to the dragon, he thought...

The genkan was dark too, but darkness didn't make his eyes failed to see a pair of girl's shoes in the room. So, he thought, Tohru-san 'is' here. He smiled to himself, nothing to worry. Tohru Honda was in Hatori's house, so everything was alright, and he wouldn't be thrown by his guilty feelings. He put his own shoes off, and decided to go inside, to greet the girl.

Maybe he was running, maybe he was walking, maybe he was half walking half running, or his mind didn't warn him when his toe tripped over something, or he was too careless to walk, so his head could bumped to the wooden floor. A silent 'ouch' was mentioned while he was rubbing his head, giving it some ease.  
That time, he saw something in front of him... a piece of cloth...

To make himself sure, he took it so he could see it clearly. He was right. It was a piece of cloth. To be exact... a pair of black trousers, something Hatori Sohma would wear. He then turned his head to see the something that made himself fall, another cloth. Only a glance, then he knew what it was... boxers. Well, he didn't wear them often, but he knew that was a pair of boxers.

He sat there for a while, trying to connect all the puzzles. Then, he heard something, soon he knew that he had fell in front of the dragon's bedroom. The shouji was half opened. Another voice. He moved himself with his knees, like a girl from late Tokugawa era would do, and cocked his head to the right side to see what was it.

He shouldn't.  
He gaped.

He saw Hatori, he saw Tohru Honda, and he knew that he couldn't greet the girl like he wanted to do moments before. They were just wearing their skins, pale browns, which were touching against each other. Damp, full of sweats. He could see it even in that somber room. The moanings came from there too... from either of them, or both of them.

"---hn..." Another moan, this time the monkey could catch it and actually see it. He clenched his fists at the sounds that the girl made. "--hn... Ha-tori..."  
The elder just answered her call with some grunts Ritsu couldn't quite catch, but Hatori's face was enough to tell everything what was in there, and that, with the words that Ritsu couldn't explain.  
Hatori just pressed his body to the girl's, and Ritsu saw her legs hugging Hatori's waist. He didn't need sexual educations to realize what they were doing.

As soon possible, he would like to stand on both his feet, and went away, back the next morning, like nothing was happened. But he couldn't. The scene was too eye-catching. Their actions were unexpectable to him.  
He didn't know that Hatori, the Hatori Sohma could be like that, he didn't even know that Tohru Honda, the famous pure girl named Tohru Honda, could *do* that.  
Even if she could, he imagined that it was with Akito, where the later would try to rape her. But no, that was not with Akito, and he knew by himself, that was *not* rapery... The girl's eyes proved that it was not, and so does Hatori's... they were enjoying it.

He didn't understand that even more. The only thing he knew that, he didn't go, he watched them confusedly. Even when the pace between the two people in front of him went to a faster stage, even when the two people in front of him started to groan words and pleads that the monkey didn't even think they could say, even when the two people had reached the top of their efforts and screamed each other's name.

Good, he could go. He thought. But again, his feet was dumb.

Maybe the two people had stopped, breathing heavily; their chests were moving up and down, the sign that they were exhausted.... until Hatori moved his head so his lips landed on the girl's... now maybe, woman's... and the girl didn't seem to mind it at all. Instead, she was pleasuring him back, their hands went to each other's body... and Ritsu knew... it hadn't finished... and even more embarrassed when he knew that they would do something beyond his imaginations...

...

His jaw dropped to the ground. What was the matter with these people!? He didn't know that they were sex drives! He didn't even know that they had became a couple! Soon he imagined what Hatori had felt when Akito ordered them, ten of them, all of the male, to use the girl. He must be very depressed. He shook his head. He hadn't even thought of how, and then... he sighed...

For another hour he watched them, till he felt they wouldn't stop until their body couldn't move again. His feet moved by themselves, and left the place. Before he even realized it, a certain place on his kimono was wet...

***

Ritsu didn't sleep when he came back to his house. The only reason was he couldn't was the other night's situation; it made him cannot do anything beside sitting on his futon. He didn't even think. Till he realized that it had passed eight in the morning, he stood on his feet, and walked his way to Sohma Hatori's house... again. It was a shorter walk than yesterday's, but he was still in front of the dragon's house longer from the day before.

He didn't even open the door. He almost jumped in surprise when the door was opened by somebody, the somebody was Hatori, at the back was Tohru Honda, both were wearing their coats, like they were ready to go somewhere. As he regained control of his surprise, he quickly said. "I'msorryIbotheryou, Imterriblysorry!"

"Ritchan-san?" The girl bent her neck over the older man's shoulder, to make herself sure. She smiled and repeated. "Ritchan-san!"

"What are you doing here?" Hatori asked. If Tohru greeted him happily, like the sun that was shining in the eastern sky; Hatori just questioning with a tone that was colder than night in winter.

"I'msorry! I'msorry! Ah, thatwasthatwas---" Ritsu played the obijime -the rope which tightened the obi- with his fingers nervously. "I'msorry Imean, yesterdayyesterday Iwas IrecievedphonecallfromYuki-sanaskingmetosearhcyouinHatori'shouse. IwasIwasImeanIcan'tbotheryouyesterdaybecauseyoutwowere Imean --- Ican'tpossiblybotheryoulastnightsoIcamebackandI'msorry I-- I---" He stopped when he'd realized what he was saying, the other reason, was because Hatori was covering the monkey's mouth with his one hand.

"Ritsu, we'll talk inside." With that, he pulled the cross-dresser's into his house, asking the girl to close the door.

"I'msorryIdon'tmeantopeek---IcangoIwildowhatyouwant, Iwouldevenkillmyself---" and so on. Ritsu kept on saying words with his nervous yet fast tongue. Hatori slapped his own head and ran his hand to his hair, he couldn't stand standing beside the monkey any longer. 

And worse, Tohru seemed to catch every Ritsu's words and replied them with concerned words every now and then. "Don't worry Ritchan-san, no need to be sorry, please don't, we won't ask you anything, *no* please, don't kill yourself---" and so on.

"Tohru, please bring something to drink for Ritsu." Hatori then said, coldly, but loud and clear enough to make both of them stopped the words they were saying. "But please don't take *that* tea."

"Ah, yes." Tohru bowed a little.

"Pleaseplease, don'tbotherIcan'tprepareitbymyself, IcanImean---Icantaketeaformyself."  
"Please, Ritchan-san, you're not bothering anybody. I will go and prepare the tea." Tohru just smiled, and leaving them both.

Ritsu obviously wanted to follow the girl and proved he would get the tea by himself, when a strong hand landed on his shoulder, and stop his step. Hatori's. He held his movement till Tohru had disappeared behind the corridor. "Now, Ritsu,"

"PleaseHatori-sanIdidn'tmeantopeeklastnightbutyoudidn'tlockthedoorandyourhousewassodarkand---"

"I will forgive you if you stop talking." With short single sentence from the older man, Ritsu had his mouth shut. Hatori sighed for a while, putting his hands at the side pockets of his coat. "You came here last night?"

"AhyesIcamewhenYuki-santoldmeto---"

"Yes, that's enough." Hatori breathed out, and again asked him. "You saw us?"

Ritsu blushed, red enough till his face was darker than the kimono he was wearing. "Ididn'tmeantoI'msorryHatori-sanpleaseIdidn'tmeantoseeyoutwo."

"So, you did see us." Hatori cleared everything for himself. His eyes were looking straight to Ritsu's, making him couldn't say anything for a while, with so much power, anger, embarrassment, mix of emotions inside the dragon's eyes.

When he could, Ritsu pulled his sight away and turned his head to different direction. "I--- I better help her." He said quickly, but not as quickly as before, and half ran to the direction of the kitchen. He knew he couldn't stand being near the older man again, he couldn't bear it, he had seen that kind of look before... for a long time, he had imagined his parents looking him in the same way Hatori had seen him a while ago.

Mix of emotions, including in there were the compositions of power, anger, and embarrassment, the clearest he could see in the older man's side... and more with regret, humiliation, sadness, and disgust. He had imagined his parents looked him with the same look, but of course, it was imaginations... 'now', it was different... he saw the real thing. Soon he regretted himself barging to other's house in the middle of the night. He shouldn't done that... He should have known...

He chocked his tears from his eyes. He had felt the deepest slumber of self-humiliation... to hide his weakness... but he had never been humiliated by others as deep as the time he saw Hatori's eyes... They were scaring him... they were the greatest devil alive... he hadn't known how the others could feel complete fear with other people's presence; just like some certain Junishis with facing Akito... But he knew 'now', when he saw Hatori... 

"Ritchan-san?" Again, Tohru's voice. He titled his head, and quickly brushed the tears with the hands of kimono. But Tohru didn't fail to see the one that Ritsu had been trying to hide. "Oh my god! Ritchan-san! You're crying! I'm sorry!" Ritsu somehow ended in the kitchen, well, that was his destination.

"No, no, Tohru-san..." Ritsu calmly pushed Tohru worried hands from his face. "I'm the one who should apologize..." He then retreated few steps, and bowed as deep as he could. "I'm sorry... Yesterday, I went here and actually see you and Hatori in his bedroom. I'm sorry." He bowed again.

Tohru felt the temperature of her face rising. She knew what Ritsu meant, quickly she bowed back. "No, no, not at all, Ritchan-san! It's not your fault!"

Either he or she, didn't know how long they had bowed to each other. But it was a long time, until bass voice called. "How much you two wanted to stay in that position?" The voice enough to make Ritsu lifted his head in surprise, he saw Hatori's eyes at a split second, enough to make the monkey jerk his head to the other side quickly.

The dragon not seemed to mind at all. "Tohru, I'll wait in the car." He stopped for a while to look at Ritsu. "Please take care of Ritsu for a while." Tohru cocked her head in confusion for a while, but then Hatori mouthed her something and at that time, Tohru nodded, and Hatori went out.

When the doctor was out of sight, Ritsu again, played his fingers to his obijime and moved his hands uncomfortably through his obi. "Tohru-san. Since when, I mean, you and Hatori-san... I mean---"

Tohru smiled. "Ah, Ritchan-san." She put her hands above his, squeezing them gently, as if it was telling him to calm down. "You thought Hatori was angry?"

Ritsu only ducked his face, Tohru just still, she was waiting for Ritsu's answer, and he voiced. "Actually... I'm afraid of him."

"Afraid? Of Hatori?"

"Yes." He then halted his words for a while, he then continued doubtfully. "He doesn't like me. I interrupt his privacy, and yours Tohru-san. I must have make you angry."

"Not at all." Tohru again, tightened her squeeze at Ritsu's fingers, with one of her hand, she titled his voice. "You're a really nice person, Ritchan-san, you really aware of people surround you. I sometimes envy you, not to do something that someone doesn't like... you're afraid to make something different. And you're imagining things by yourself. You're afraid to see something different in someone's glance... you're blaming yourself, and put curtains around yourself..."

Ritsu raised his one of his eyebrows. "Curtains? Tohru-san, you mean 'walls'?"

Tohru chuckled. "Now, you have a little confident. No, if I said 'walls', you wouldn't care of your surroundings, you even wouldn't care about anything else. But, you always sees things around you, because of that, I say 'curtains'." She trailed her fingers along side his jaw, possessive touch actually, but her eyes were looking at him in a same way his mother look at him. "Ritchan-san, when you saw us, last night, what do you feel?"

"Eh?" Ritsu's face reddened, his mind automatically rolled the view back. "Idon'tknowTohru-sanIdon'tknow---" He stopped when he saw Tohru's face... then he had something in his mind...  
To a scene happened long time ago... that was when his mother brushed his hair, in his monkey form, and said he was beautiful... he didn't understand his mother that time, but she said he was beautiful...   
Of course... His mouth half opened when he realized that... "I didn't see anything, Tohru-san..."

Tohru started to smile as Ritsu continued. "Of course, I didn't see anything... I'd never seen anything... I'm only... ah---" As a bolt of lightning hit him right at the place.

He didn't understand that even more. The only thing he knew that, he didn't go, he watched them confusedly.

He hadn't seen anything before... He only cared how to do something with other people's perceptions... He always thought about other people's point of view until he had buried all of his confidence... all of his own life...  
Of course, Tohru Honda cared about everybody, like he was, but she had done anything with her own way, surroundings...

What was the matter with these people!? He didn't know that they were sex drives!

Tohru Honda made him understand... He should have known, that that night, he hadn't seen anything... but both of them should had seen something that he couldn't catch with his eyes. He might seen the interactions between them, but he hadn't seen the beauty of it, other people maybe only saw it as a 'sexual intercourse' like he had seen. But it was different, something else... The ones who did it, were the only ones who could see the true beauty of it.

Her mother too, said that his son was a beauty, because she had born him... To her, he was more precious than any other living creatures. The others would say that he was not, but to her mother... who born him, care for him, even though he couldn't be hugged, he was the best she ever had...  
It was the same as the world, his world, if he was only the watcher... he wouldn't seen the beauty, he had to do it by his own, do his own things... and he would see the beauty...

"You see, Ritchan-san." Tohru then said when she saw some differences in Ritsu's eyes with his original ones. "Hatori wasn't angry. He was just thinking when he saw you. He then told me that it was the time for you to open your eyes and see your surroundings in a clearer way..."

"Tohru-san." He started to cry, knowing he knew something that he hadn't known before. "Ah... thank you, thank you very much..."

He had been the watcher... Sitting behind the curtains, didn't want to go through it.

"You're welcomed, Ritchan-san." She clapped her hands, and stepped back. "Well, if you would kind enough to drink the tea I made. I'm sorry to leave you here, but I have to catch Hatori. I feel uneasy to be waited by other person." She bowed one more time, and set her feet. Ritsu had changed, thank god she didn't tell him that last night was only a set up, created by someone else... She sighed. If he knew, maybe she had to think something else to change the monkey's point of view...

"Ah, wait, Tohru-san!" Just when Tohru walked, he caught her wrist, and pulled the girl, towards his own body.

***

Hatori was looking at his wristwatch in his car when Tohru came. "It took you long enough in there." He commented as she opened the door and sit beside the driver's seat. He soon started his car.

Tohru just shook her head, her face was red. "It's nothing."

"You're blushing." Hatori said as he slowly gas the pedal. "What's the matter?"

"Ritchan-san..." She put her fingers on her lips. "He kissed me."

* * *

VII. Out of this World  
Words are sharper than sword  
(Shigure x Tohru)

Teasers:  
"If you mentioned Akito-san's name with a false tone, Tohru-kun, I will not resist myself to kill you." One sentence from the dog; informative and threatening, colder than anything she knew... colder than even Hatori's.  
Tohru lifted her head to see a mischievous smile from the author. But instead, she found a completely different person, eyeing her with jealousy, anger and hatred. Not even usual playful light from his eyes. "Shigure-san...?"

... :sigh miserably: stupid attempt on philosophy. Just ignore it, please, I'm having trouble with Ritsu's part, this is the most meaningless part I've ever made, but I've tried my best, I'd retype it three times already, and I don't know what to do with him... And for my English, I'm sorry... I don't have any other place to pratice it. But it 'is' readable... (isn't it?)  
While making this part, the author's listening to Seki Tomokazu's album "Naked mind".


	7. Out of this world (Shigure x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 25th, 2002  
Finish: February 27th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

VII. Out of this World  
Words are sharper than sword  
(Shigure x Tohru)

"Shigure..." Soft voice, yet demanding. "When would Tohru Honda come to this place again? She came to Hatori's place, didn't she? Ritsu also had seen her. I can't stand any of this anymore... No one... seems to care about me..."

"Akito-san, please don't say that... I do care about you..."

"But I can't stand it anymore, Shigure..." He said, half angry, half sad... "I---"

"Shigure-san, are you alright?" Her voice pulled him from the conversation he had with the Kacho -clan leader- that morning, when Hatori and the girl just left the Honke -main house-. He was surprised knowing Akito had called him from the Honke, he didn't expect the kacho to call anybody... that was the first time, Akito called somebody, with telephone.

The same morning, Hatori arrived with Tohru Honda. She was late for the school for two hours already, and then she skipped, no, Hatori and him actually, ordered her to skip school. She didn't want to at first, but until Hatori had tried to force her with his cold comments, she gave up. Shigure chuckled at this sight.

"Oh an actually 'caring' Hatori..." He had commented, but only answered by a glare, the infamous Hatori glare. He then said to the girl to make a coffee for him, which she soon obeyed. "Ah, Ha-san." Shigure then commented, with his molesting voice as usual. "So possessive, you've make her act as a wife even before konyaku*... You're even worse than A-ya. Maybe you should ask her to call you with 'anata' than just 'Hatori'." 

"It was you, wasn't it?" Hatori then said. "You and your 'Ha-san's favorite tea'."

"Ah, Ha-san, no need to thank me... I have hooked you up with your 'wife-to-be'. Now, won't you ease up and ask me to be your nakodo." 

"You don't even have a wife, and you're asking me to take you as my nakodo." He grunted.

Shigure then chuckled a little, and then he started some meaningless conversation about nakodo, -some kind of matchmaker... Japanese people, who're going to be married had to have nakodo through the process of marriage-, and Shigure then talked about some nakodos he knew, and how great their marriage were... Until the dragon had enough heard of it... As the coffee came, Hatori drank as fast as possible in a 'Hatori' kind of way, he stood up and said that he must go, after kissing the girl's cheek, which made her surprise, and dumbfounded until the man left the house. Shigure just saw this with amusement while Tohru touched the place where the doctor touched her, and blushed, an interesting color... that time, his mind flied to somewhere else... to his last conversation with Akito in the phone... until the girl took her back from his reverie with calling his name.

"I'm alright, Tohru-kun." Shigure sighed, he leaned his chin to the palm of his hand, which was on the table. "You've changed a little... only with one night with Ha-san. I don't know what would happen if I gave you another tea with greater effects."

Her face even went redder, as she took a seat behind the table, across the place where the dog was sitting. "Shigure-san..."

"Oh, no, Tohru-kun. I said to Ha-san not to thank me that much." Shigure grinned. "You really look like a mature woman right now. Of course." He chuckled. "Ha-san had made you a woman in a night, that's very touching... ah, I almost made myself cry... Aren't I a good person?"

"Ah, Shigure-san." Tohru blushed even more, and sweat-dropped. "Please don't talk about that subject again, you almost made me die in embarrassment."

"Is that so?" He eyed the girl in front of her.

"That is... I don't know how to tell Yuki-kun... and Kyou-kun about this." Tohru half ducked her head. "I didn't even think that Hatori would receive me with open hands. But, I'm afraid that I would hurt Yuki-kun and Kyou-kun's feelings..." She stopped for a while. Shigure was silent, waiting her to continue. "And I afraid if Akito-san knew this..." Shigure's eyes narrowed at this sentence, but Tohru didn't realize it, she resumed. "I afraid he would... Hatori would be---"

"Don't say anything about Akito." Shigure said... coldly. Hearing the unusual thing in Shigure's voice, Tohru quickly titled her head, only to see Shigure Sohma, glaring at her. If looks could kill, Tohru was sure that she had died that time. Shigure continued, with voice colder than Hatori's, if Hatori was calm, Shigure was threatening. "Don't say anything about Akito when you didn't know him at all, Tohru-kun."

"You think so highly about yourself... hurting Yuki-kun and Kyou-kun feelings?" Shigure silently intertwined his fingers, and put his chin on it, he was watching Tohru with a look Tohru hadn't seen before. "I thought I'd given you enough with the tea... with Ha-san... with Yuki-kun, and Kyou-kun, with every Junishi you knew... but I think Akito-san had spoiled you too much... Maybe I'd spoiled you too..."

"Sp...spoiled?" Tohru repeated nervously, she had faced too much weird things in the past week, and 'now' she didn't understand if Shigure tried to play with her with his newest joke. But they were not joke, Shigure's dark eyes, glaring at her, filled with anger, hatred and jealousy... not amusement, joke, or anything else... "Shi--- shigure-san?"

"If you mentioned Akito's name with a wrong tone, Tohru-kun, I might kill you." Shigure smirked. Tohru sensed fear in herself.

"Shigure-san, why do you--- why Akito-san---"

"I thought I told you not to say his name in a wrong tone, Tohru-kun." Shigure cut Tohru's words, making the girl kept her mouth closed as the dog continued, "Not even one time Akito stops mentioning you... Tohru-san this Tohru-san that." He said, then he waited for a while, closing his eyes, then continued. "First they were... was 'ugly', 'evil', 'stupid', then 'how dare she---' and 'how could she---'..." Of course he mentioned after the time Tohru came to the house, telling Akito that she understood him. He stopped, that time, was a little bit longer. "Then no more 'how is Yuki' but 'how is Tohru-san'... and then before I knew it, he's asking you more than he's asking the other Junishis..." 

Tohru was dumbfounded; she didn't even open her mouth. She only felt cold when the wind flied thorough the room from the opened sliding door. It was more quite than usual... Shigure resumed. "He's extremely excited when I told him we could hug you without transforming... he called us, you know for what?" This time he threw the question to the girl. Tohru nodded, but Shigure didn't open his eyes to see it.

"Of course you know..." He chuckled; it wasn't similar with his usual chuckle. "But there was another motive behind it. He wants to know who're the people that can take you from his hands, that can stop him from having you..."

Tohru's heartbeat stopped beating, as the man, the unknown man in front of him smirked. "And the man will face the greatest fear in his live... the next thing he will know is that his presence was no more in the world."

Hatori! A name came into her head in a matter of instant. She quickly stood onto her feet and her mind on one focus, call Hatori and warn him. But something caught her wrist, pulled him, and then her back was slammed against the low table, hard. Shigure's hands were both locking her wrists. "No, no, Tohru-kun. Don't be a naughty little girl."

"Why--- why, Shigure-san! Why Hatori---!!"

"Ha-san," His eyes went to a sympathetic gaze for a while. "Poor Ha-san, he had been so miserable. I know how he feels every time he had to erase someone's memory, his emotions when Kana left him. Oh my, Ha-san had too much burden in his life... So, I gave him the tea... so could he forget about everything... with your help, of course, Tohru-kun... such a perfect opportunity. You should be glad for Ha-san now, he would be released from all of the ropes that has been keeping him to break free..."

"Shigure san---" Tears started to gather in the corner of her eyes, as the author's head descended to her neck, his nose brushed against her pale skin there.

"Ah, I see... This is the love mark Hatori made for you last night." She felt something wet at the certain place Shigure mentioned, and he knew that she felt similar touch the night before, but this was rougher, and it had no feelings at all when the dog touched it with his tongue... maybe, Shigure just nibbled at the same place to torture her. 

"I'd been wrong to put my bet on you, Tohru-kun." He said again, hoarse voice beside her ear, making goose bumps all over her skin. She felt even more fear when she noticed something brushing the place between her legs. Days ago, similar thing happened with Ayame, she hadn't known anything... but 'now', just after one night with Hatori, she had seen another side of another sex's anatomy.

But with all the touches Shigure made with his fingers, his lips, his tongue and his body above hers, she still heard all the words he said, she hadn't missed the three-letters word that Shigure had mentioned. "---Bet---?"

"Of course you don't know anything Tohru-kun." Tohru jerked her head to another side, avoiding Shigure's dark and cruel eyes. Shigure just caught her chin with his fingers, forced her eyes to open with fear when he looked her straight, he smiled. "Little innocent Tohru Honda, a precious little bet... predicting what would you do was easy... because our same sign."

"But very disturbing in the end." His breaths slammed to her face. "You know how much time I took to get Yuki out of the house, to make Akito forget that little rat? When you came, I thought it was a chance for Yuki-kun to get you... and then the time would come when Yuki would disobey Akito for your sake... But I guess he was slower than snail... one year, and nothing."

"Yuki-kun...? Why Akito would---!" Tohru couldn't continue more when Shigure strong hand was in pressed her throat to the table, making her difficult to breath, choking her with the lack of air.

"I told you---" Shigure narrowed his eyes in front of hers. Her face was already pale, without air, full with horror, panic and terror. "You have no rights to call Akito with that tone, Sohma outsider... Akito--- was the only thing that's precious for me."

Informative and suggesting sentence, Tohru widened his eyes when Shigure's body was all over him, one's hand moving gently from her throat, covering her mouth, avoidng anything if she tried to scream. "I would do anything to obey him... to please him, and to torture you, Tohru-kun..."

Obey him, of course, what Akito ordered all the male Junishis to use Tohru... and if it was Akito's wish... it was difficult for the rest of the Junishi to disobey, even if it was ordered to the little ones like Momiji and Hiro; and they would do it just like what Akito wants... even if Akito had another motive behind it. They had no reasons to question him... So they did... Ayame, Hatsuharu, Momiji, Hatori, Ritsu... maybe Hiro, Kyou and Yuki would do it because one reason... Akito, the supreme one for them... maybe they would restrain and confuse... of the way... and what would Tohru act if they did that...

And Shigure was not... he believed what he was doing, he knew and aware what he was doing. He didn't feel the restrains and the confusion; he would do all for Akito. Maybe he was blinded by his care to Akito; angry when Akito cared for someone else beside him... mad when Akito cared for Tohru more. Shigure then blamed Tohru, and he maybe was doing revenge at her... maybe true that love could make you blind... Shigure was the mastermind; he was trying to kill Tohru with his own way.

"No cries, Tohru-kun..." Shigure's voice. She didn't even realize what he was doing to her... she hadn't hear all of his cursing words and the spoils of his betrayed mind, she hadn't notice what he had done to her body, as if her brain was separated from her body. The last thing she noticed that she was stripped, physically, and mentally, much like he understood what he was thinking; a thought that the original Tohru wouldn't think... He was glad he succeded in hurting her... she knew when she saw Shigure satisfied look on the mess he made. "I hate spoiled high-school students who cry..."

He had raped her...

She never felt more sinful than that time... she had thought bad things about Shigure. She had no rights to accuse people, if Shigure blamed her... why didn't she see thing from Shigure's point of view?  
If she was no victim...  
If Shigure was the victim... She tried to imagine Akito doing things that make the Shigure she knew to do 'this', something like hypnotize. But then, she would blame everything on Akito... Shigure was right, she didn't even know Akito before, and she made assumptions about him, with the stories she heard... maybe she was wrong.  
Maybe she was wrong from the beginning...  
Maybe she was wrong to step her feet on Sohma's family ground...

Regret won't bring you anywhere... She heard some voices... But she didn't hear that when she sobbed and drowned to the darkness...

***

'Hatori-san?' Her voice from behind the line, Tohru's voice. He stiffened when he heard her voice, just when he stopped the car at Sohma's Honke yard; it was trembling, full of all emotions that he knew. Tohru's voice was not like that... and she started to call him with the formal call again. 'Hatori-san... where are you?' Her voice again, than it was a confirmation to him, that it was really Tohru's voice.

"Tohru?"

'Hatori-san, where are you?' Weak, and fear... distress and tiredness... Tohru never sound like that.

"I'm in the Honke. Tohru, are you alright?"

'Hatori-san, please get out of the Honke!' Panic. 

"Tohru, what's the---"

'Hatori-san! Just get out of there! Please!! Hatori-san! Hato---!' He heard no more of her voice, when suddenly his cell phone was taken from his hands, by a slender pale hand from outside the car, coming through from the window.

"Relax, Tohru-san... I will tell him what you want." Hatori felt his blood stopped flowing from his heart, as if it stopped producing the red liquids. He didn't know what Tohru had mentioned by leaving the Honke. But he knew something that was not right, Akito just stood, looking at the dragon, smiling...

Shigure saw the girl from the end of the corridor. Not far from the sight, was the girl that he made dirty with his own hands. The girl had been screaming the doctor's name when she suddenly stopped. He figured soon enough that Akito had disturbed her conversation, her information, actually. The man just smiled, he had contacted Akito before (when he had finished his business with the girl, he chuckled), that Hatori had left the dog's house.

'Now', she leaned against the wall near the phone was, maybe completely shocked... maybe filled with thoughts of what would the kacho do to the dragon, just because her faults... yes, her faults...  
He had been wrong, he thought the girl would take Yuki away from Akito's heart... but then, she had taken Akito's heart too. He had made attempts to Yuki, since he was smaller than a hamster, some plots so Akito would hate the cursed mouse... but the clan leader did no more than locking him in some kind of closed rooms for days...  
Well, he had been wrong... but that should give the girl some lessons for taking other people's possessions. 

The man bent his head for a while, when seeing the girl eyes, sadness and nothingness, unwanted tears flowing from the brownish jewel of her eyes, hands were put motionless at both her sides, like something that had lost everything... He shook his head... well, maybe he went out of control for a while, when he wanted to walk to the girl, he suddenly remembered what Akito had said...

"But I can't stand it anymore, Shigure..." He said, half angry, half sad... "I need her."

He halted the movements of his feet. Maybe a little time could teach her some other lessons, he turned his feet and strolled to his working room, maybe thinking another way to torture his editor, or another thing to end the plot he had made with his stories... oh, he loved being an author... that way, he could plan everything to end like he wanted to be...

* * *

VIII. Singing in the rain  
It tastes bitter...  
(Kyou x Tohru)

Teasers:  
"Damnit, Shigure! I'll kill you!!" Kyou screamed on the top oh his lungs. His red eyes were filled with fire or rage, his breath was caught in the middle of his anger.  
"Kyou-kun, no, don't hurt other---" Tohru tried to stop the cat's moves, but it was not useless, of course.  
"I can't understand you!!! Even though you're kind, you're too stupid to protect the ones that hurt you!!!" Kyou screamed to the girl.

*About konyaku... I forget the English word, I only have English-English Dictionary. Konyaku's some kind of ceremony before marriage, exchanging rings, but not marriage... before marriage, after that you can call somebody with 'fiancée'. But I forget the noun... what is it? ::hits head repeatedly:: 'konyaku? konyaku?'  
No songs.


	8. Singing in the rain (Kyou x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: February 28th, 2002  
Finish: March 1st, 2002

* * *

exuberance

VIII. Singing in the rain  
It tastes bitter...  
(Kyou x Tohru)

Kyou Sohma didn't like the things that had happened that day. First, he went to the school, well... it was not really a bad thing, but, he *went* to school... wait a minute, that was not the one. Hmm, he went to the school, and one minute after the school had started, he had been bombarded with colorful marks in his report, from his homeroom teacher, the maximum score in it was 80 out of 100. That was a good thing for a normal person, but *not* for him! Especially when his highest score was Yuki's lowest... Then the yankee had been giving him verbal tortures with comparing him with the prince of the school... which was unacceptable!

Then, at the way home, he passed a second-hand-tools shop which currently playing classic cartoon 'Tom and Jerry', and in it, the mouse really made fun of the cat. He didn't accept that! Stupid people those days had made stupid cartoons, there was no way in the world, mouse could do that to the cat. They maybe didn't know that cat was the predator, and mouse was its prey...

But, when he thought about everything happened in that day, when he tried to think about bad things happened to him, the worse was still, was the thought that Tohru hadn't come home from the Honke last night. He didn't know when the thought of the girl had made his emotions went up and down, from anger until care. But, that was the fact. And he knew that he was not the only one... thoughts came back to Yuki.  
He smirked.  
At least, the Buddha that day took his side; Yuki had some student council meeting that he couldn't avoid; that left Kyou come home earlier. He still remembered the icy glare of the mouse when he had seen the cat stepped out from the house to go home. For the first time, he was ahead from the mouse; to greet Tohru first at Shigure's house, or to search her at the Honke. 

He cringed when he imagined Tohru, in other Junishi's arms... particularly in Hatori's, since she was at his place last night. If that man had done wrong, he undoubtedly, would tear the dragon's head from the body.

He opened the shouji upon entering Shigure's house, saying 'tadaima' with bored tone, not wanting the dog know that he was looking forward to see Tohru in the house, doing what she always did, either cooking in the kitchen, or doing the laundry at the backyard, and other things of the same kind.  
No answer.  
He wrinkled his eyebrow, and walked to the kitchen, nothing, then to the backyard, nothing.

"Okaeri, Kyou-kun." Kyou widened his eyes as all of his hairs stood in shock of the surprising voice, he turned his body to see the dog, leaning against the opened sliding door that leading to the backyard, where the cat was. "If you're looking for Tohru-kun, she's upstairs in her room."

"She came home?" Kyou asked automatically, of course his eyes were showing glee when he heard that, but seeing Shigure's amused expression, the cat turned his head to another side. "That's great, but don't surprise me like that again."

"I won't." Shigure chuckled. "Aww, seeing Kyou-kun's blushing face is another entertainment for me."

"There's nothing that is not entertainment for you!" Kyou said quickly, then he walked, passing Shigure that was still looking at him with the 'what did i do wrong' expression. But when Kyou had disappeared in the staircase's direction, the dog just smiled, humming something like 'i need to take some precautions to protect myself from blows'.

Kyou walked as usual... no, trying to walk like he usually walked, but it seemed that he failed; he walked even slower than usual, before stopping in front of Tohru's room. He had never been thinking something as careful as he had been doing for the last minutes... his hand was in front of the door, preparing to knock, and his mind ordered;  
First, it would be "So, you're home already..."  
Second, it would be "Are you alright?" no, not that... "What Hatori said about your body health?" yes, that's better, and not too caring...  
Third, "Did he do something to you?" If no, he could relax. If it was a 'yes' or a silent answer, he hoped Hatori knew some good doctor that could take care of him.

He knocked. No answer. Knocked again, still no answer. After few times trying, nerves got him over the edge, he opened the door... He exhaled a relaxed breath when seeing the girl, (which he was afraid, was crying or something like that, because of some random nasty thoughts that came into his mind) was actually sleeping, covered by the blanket until her waist.

He smiled, and actually wanted to close the door, letting the girl rest for a while, when something caught his sharp eyes... Not something... lot of things. He closed the door behind him and walked to the bed...  
His eyes were not lying, they didn't deceive him...  
Bruises, at her hands, her neck... faint blue marks, something that maybe happened to her sometime recent, and new red attracting bruises, informing him those were made recently... more recent than the blue ones... even if he knew that her clothes were not harmed... someone might had abused her...

He clenched his fist, the first one came in his mind was maybe one of the Junishis that might had come to Hatori's place last night, maybe even Hatori himself. But what he couldn't forgive was the one who made the new ones on her... it could have been agonizing for her, whoever he was, that man would know hell in earth...

He gritted his teeth, when he heard some moans from the girl. He set his ears, and caught something like names... he listened more, and caught 'Hatori' and 'Akito-san' between her murmurs. He cursed, the two of them, he should have known... His curse might had been to loud for her, because just about that, she suddenly opened her eyes...

Oh my, he didn't like that, he didn't like Tohru's eyes when he saw them... he hated that... He jerked his head quickly, memories flashed through his head repeatedly, continuously... Tohru's eyes were brown as usual... but he saw more, things that he had seen long time ago, in her mother's eyes before she had tried to kill herself. He tried to get a hold for himself, for how many long, he didn't know... but then her voice distracted him from his refuge

"Kyou-kun? You're home?" Tohru, sitting on her bed, trying to smile at him, as usual. But her face was horrible, some little wounds made by somebody's nails and the trails from her tears were still there.

Kyou was speechless. She didn't have to smile for him! "Who!?"

"What?" Tohru quickly replied, too quickly, but her face really showed the 'perfect confused expression'. "What are you talking about, Kyou-kun?"

"Answer me!" Kyou roughly yanked her one arm, pointing it with his eyes accusingly. "Who the hell---!! I'm not a stupid person! I know what these are! You can drop the act before I kill each and every member of the Junishi!!!"

"Kyou-kun, what do you---"

"You didn't understand what I'm talking about, or must I show it to you!?" Kyou's voice tone went high before he realized what he had been trying to do, after seeing Tohru widened eyes. He actually told her that he would show what *they* had done to her. He bit his lower lips when he saw Tohru's defeated expression. "---I... ---I didn't mean it! Tohru!!"

Tohru just pulled her hand from his grip, and then she put her other hand on the mark that Kyou had made the moment before, for gripping her hand too hard. She just gave some comforting brush to her wrist. "---Hatori... and... Shigure-san." She answered calmly.

He felt someone just pushed away all the air that was meant for his lungs. Kyou Sohma stood still, all parts of his body were stiffened. Shigure and Hatori, of all the people, Shigure...? He knew that the dog was a true perverted man... but not even in his dreams, he imagined that Shigure would actually do that... Even Hatori, the cold-blooded Hatori, the one that had left his love for the sake of Akito... Hatori, of all the Junishis... Shigure, of all the Junishis...

He didn't feel his body moving, because his brain didn't order it to do anything. But it moved by itself, truly, with speed that he had never known he had before... maybe his instinct that had ordered it... Because the next thing he knew, and saw, was Shigure, leaning against the wall, cornered, one hand holding the side of his lips, swollen and bleeding, but the dog didn't make any expression that the cat wanted to see... and it made him even angrier...

"Damnit! Shigure!!! I'll kill you!!" The cat screamed, his breaths were rushing, and face was red not because embarrassment, but anger. "I swear I'll kill you!! When I've done, I will tear Hatori into pieces!!!" Of course, Kyou would really kill the dog, before slender arms reaching him from behind, stopping him to make attempts toward the author in front of him. "Tohru!!! Let go off me!!!"

"Kyou-kun, please don't hurt any---"

"Hurt!!?" Kyou repeated with offending tone. "You know the one who's hurt right now, is you!! I just can't understand you, Tohru!!!"

"Then try to understand, Kyou-kun." Shigure said, as calm as usual, as playful as usual, and he was smiling, brushing some places of his kimono. "That's typical Kyou alright, barging to other people's business without trying to understand them, heh."

"Why you---"

"Kyou-kun, don't!!"

Maybe the anger had ruled over him, or maybe he just didn't know how to control his power, but with a light moved from his body to release itself from Tohru's grip, the girl was thrown, crossing the room, to the other side of the room. He didn't move when Tohru's back slammed against the wall, with a loud *bang*, and her body slowly sliding to the floor, she... passed out.

Silent, before Shigure commented. "Geez, look where temper brings you..." He shook his head, and walked out of the room, after saying to the dumbfounded cat. "I've had myself in trouble with bringing her upstairs and changing her clothes this morning. Now, Kyou-kun, would you take care of her for a while, because I have 78 pages to go."

This was not he had planned about, he had in his mind, to hit, to pay what the people what had done to Tohru, but ended in hurting her instead. His body was heavy when he tried to move it, just walking towards the unconscious girl, the back of his hand was brushing against her wounded cheek, and blood flowing from the forest of her hair, maybe it hit the wall.

"Sorry---" he said, trembling. "I'm sorry---" He couldn't say anymore after that, his body was shaking when he brought the girl upstairs, for again, to let her rest. His eyes couldn't avoid looking to the bruises that were all over her body when he put her on her bed... he didn't know how to react, he had reacted with violence towards the culprit, but ended with violating her...

Her mother too, maybe died because he had been violating her rights of living...

'Try to understand her...' He remembered what Shigure had said to him. No, he couldn't... He couldn't understand somebody who wouldn't sacrifice someone else, for him always sacrificing someone else for his own sake... his mother, his master, or maybe, the time when he wanted to be accepted among the Junishis, he must sacrifice Yuki...

He took her hand and just sat beside her lying figure. He closed his eyes... trying to recall every memories that he had regarding his mother, and Tohru. He snapped, opening his eyes quickly, since when he had become some sentimental person? He felt some movements in his own hands, her fingers moved... he turned his head to see the girl's eyes opening slightly.

"---Kyou-kun---?" She quickly tried to get up when she realized where she was. "Shi--- Shigure-san?"

"He's alright." He muttered, displeased sound in his tone, his hands carefully pushing her to the bed, making her laying her back again. "Thanks to you."

"Hhh..." She sighed, looking relieved. "Thank god..." He couldn't avoid wrinkling his eyebrows when he saw Tohru's reaction of what he had done, the girl just closed her eyes in peace when she suddenly sat up. "Hatori---" She said, fear, and anxious. "Kyou-kun... Hatori's... Akito-san's." She then clutched his shirt, "Kyou-kun, please help Hatori, Hatori-san... he's, he's taken by Akito-san."

"Hatori?" Kyou raised his eyebrows. "Akito took Hatori? What kind of joke is this?" He then realized that Tohru didn't make a joke out of it, the girl pleaded with her eyes, from them, he knew that Hatori had done something that didn't please the kacho -clan leader-. "Useless," Kyou then said, firmly. "If what you're talking about is the same Akito, you know yourself that's useless." He pushed her hands away from his shirt. "I just couldn't understand you, after all Hatori and Shigure had done to you, you still wanted to save and protect them, this is weird."

"What--- what's weird?"

"You!" He pointed with his eyes. "You're extremely weird! Hatori and Shigure had taken you to sin!! And why in the cursed spirits name, are you protecting those bastards!!?"

"Kyou-kun?

"Don't play 'kyou-kun' with me, Tohru! I want answers!!"

Silence... after a long one, Tohru just smiled, this made the cat confused again, but the girl just continued. "Because I love them, Kyou-kun."  
'No!' his heartbeat stopped, she couldn't possibly talking about---  
"Because I care for them... not just them, but all of the Junishis... I love them all, I care about them." She smiled again, this smile was for the cat in front of him. "Including Kyou-kun."

Kyou's face reddened, he jerked his head towards different direction. "Damnit... I can't understand you..." He said silently, that was when Tohru patted his shoulder, to take his attention, and she did... the girl just smiled, again.

"You don't need to understand me, Kyou-kun." She said. "You don't need to even try... just act like the usual Kyou-kun, and as the time goes by, you could understand me from experience... My mother also had told me this..."

Kyou was silent for a while, then he shook his head. "Gods, everyone's acting strange..." Tohru just chuckled, and he laughed too, didn't know what was funny...

Kyou then looked at the girl... Maybe she was right... he would do like what he always did. Even if all the Junishis tried to take her by another way, he would try with his own way... He might be a rough person outside, but he decided, the time when he made act in front of her, he wanted her, with all of her emotions, not just her body. Until that time, he would wait... yes, maybe, maybe, he loved the girl...

"Tohru," he then put his finger on her lower lips, stopping the girl from her chuckles. He looked at him, and the girl just smiled, like she knew what he was going to do, and her smile, was a permission for him to do it...

The both didn't realized, that behind the door, was standing Yuki Sohma. His eyes, was dark, silently watching the unseen scene behind the door, and hearing the faint conversation behind the same door. He didn't believe that the stupid cat had used the opportunity given to him perfectly. The mouse shook his head and walked slowly from the door. He had set in his mind, that he would do like what he had done before, racing Kyou, even when he had left the start finish later... He had won, in martial artist... and surely, he wouldn't loose... in getting Tohru...

* * *

IX. Lose Control  
Sakura's not for eternity...  
(Akito x Tohru)

Teasers:  
Her body was paralyzed. She couldn't even make a single move, as the man in front of him, looking at her, gazing at her with looks she couldn't describe. True if she had seen him more than twice, but none of the experiences helped her. She hadn't felt any emotions more mixed than she was experiencing at 'this' time.  
Akito took a step closer. Behind him, the opened shouji was showing the background of the falling cherry blossoms at the Sohma Honke's yard, and that time, she had seen another side of beauty... A beauty that she hadn't seen before...  
If it was true that devil had also have their attractions, then she had seen Sohma's devil, in his own beauty... and the devil was descending his body into hers... "Shigure, close the door." Akito said slowly, and the dog soon obeyed... the door made a new barrier for them... the other Junishis were just standing in silence as Akito tried to claim her...

I wrote five times slower than usual because the carpal tunnel syndrome. To answer some questions, this is not going to be Toriru, and I hope all the loopholes will be answered in the last 4 parts.  
While making this part, the author's listening to Fruits Basket's album "Memory for you"


	9. Lose Control (Akito x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: March 3rd, 2002  
Finish: March 3rd, 2002

* * *

exuberance

IX. Lose Control  
Sakura's not for eternity...  
(Akito x Tohru)

When Yuki Sohma descended from the second floor, the place where not a long time ago, he had heard the little conversation between the cursed cat, and the girl that... and from the little clues from their words, he could make an assumption, that Shigure and Hatori had done something wrong to Tohru; and that 'something wrong' was not good to be heard from the cat's tone... He could imagine what 'something wrong' that Shigure and Hatori had... Yuki clenched his fist. If he torture Shigure right 'now', he definitely knew that Tohru wouldn't be pleased; he had heard the reasons from Tohru's own mouth.

The only thing he could do right then, was avoiding any contact with the dog... If he met him, he would doubt he could control his---

"Yuki-kun?" Fate was cruel. Yuki gritted his teeth when he saw Shigure in the end of the stairs, just near the phone. "You're home?"

Of course I am home! Don't you see me right here? Yuki mockingly said in his mind, but he only managed a smirk. "Yes. I'm home."

"About time." Shigure then smiled, an usual Shigure smile, but Yuki cringed to imagine what kind a 'Shigure' behind that smile, the Shigure that had enough wit to kick Charlie Chaplin from his stage, doing what he couldn't put into words, to Tohru Honda, the one that Yuki wanted to protect. Shigure then said again, "Hatori just called us from the Honke---" Great, Hatori, now what had been happening with my life? "---Akito wants us to go to Honke, and bring Tohru-kun along."

... Yuki was speechless for a while. He only felt the earth just spinning to the other side. "What he's going to do to her?" He heard his mouth asking.

"Of course, Yuki-kun. He's going to do what he wants," Shigure then stopped for a while, studying Yuki's expression. "You know that, and you can't do anything to stop it. So, if you're going to do what I think you're going to, you better stop it."

Of course he knew that, what kind of idiot the mouse was, if he didn't know that. He just turned his body, and said with a cold voice. "I'm going to call Honda-san and bakaneko. I hope Akito permits it." He ascended the stairs, not looking the smiling Shigure down there.

Yuki never went to Tohru's room with his own accord. Yes, he often stopped in front the door to her room without doing anything; but now he was going to knock and enter; he didn't like it, especially when he was going to find the cat inside, doing what he didn't want to see in it. Then, he was standing in front of the door, when he knew that his ears didn't catch any suspicious noise, he knocked the door twice. "Honda-san, I'm going to enter." And he opened the wooden thing.

Damn, he shouldn't.

There, Tohru was, well, what you could say... under the other boy. Well, they tried to catch their breaths, but seemed couldn't when their breaths were caught in the middle of their throat, faces were red of embarrassment, and eyes widened. Well, of course, they did something that Yuki didn't like to imagine, but at least, they still had their clothes on.

"Stop doing that." Yuki was amazed by his own controlled emotion when he said that. "If you're going to do that, do that in night time, where no one can see the both of you; not in the middle of noon."

"Yu---Yuki-kun!" Tohru sat up quickly, she blushed, buttoned some buttons at her shirt. She was shocked, that was clear. Yuki, again clapped his emotions when he smiled as usual to the girl that was caught.

"Che." Kyou jumped to his feet, avoiding Yuki's eyes, and walked passing him, like he wasn't interested to the girl; but Yuki knew that Kyou was doing that because the later didn't want the mouse knew his feelings. "Wait a second, bakaneko." The school prince said, halting the cat's steps.

"What do you want?"

"We need to talk." Yuki sentenced. Tohru's eyes lit up suddenly, she quickly stood up and started to babble. "Yuki-kun, don't, I mean, Kyou-kun, please explain, we are---"

Kyou chuckled. "That sounds... interesting. Hehe, now what you're going to say, kusonezumi." He cracked his feet and showed his teeth in deep amusement seeing the mouse was in his usual expressionless face. "... are you, by any mean, jealous?" Kyou laughed more when he saw Yuki wrinkled his eyebrows, seeing the cat, only to stop again when the mouse said. "What you're talking about?"

"Huh?"

"Oh," Yuki then smiled, evilly, completely satisfied when he saw the cat's confused face. "You meant 'that'? So, you thought my pride was so low and you thought that you could beat me like that, bakaneko." He laughed slowly. "You know, bakaneko, I came here to inform that Akito wants you, and me, and---" he moved his gaze to the girl that was speechless. "Honda-san to the Honke."

"He---hey? Are you se---" Kyou's voice and soon Yuki felt Kyou's hand on his shoulder, that he quickly slapped back with his, "Don't touch me, you filth!" The mouse glared at the cat, making the later stepped back in surprise.

"Yu--- Yuki-ku---" Tohru's worried voice soon was cut by Yuki's own trembling voice. "Yes, Akito wants her, what can you do about her, now? You don't have a choice to save her, and don't say 'Hey' to me! It's the end for Honda-san!!!"

***

It was the end for her? Was that true? She asked herself. Kyou didn't say anything much after that. Yuki was too. That time, she thought that they had been mad at her; but sometimes later, she knew that it was not right. They were worried, and they knew they couldn't do anything about her, because that they felt hopeless and guilty... She understood that soon enough...  
Did Hatori fell the same too? She thought again, because she then didn't know how was Hatori in Akito's had. The last thing she knew about him was... the kacho -clan leader- had found the dragon...

But she soon knew, by the time Hatori was back to Shigure's house, to pick them up. He too, had avoided her questioning gaze. From there, Tohru decided not to ask everything, because when she did that, she would make them feel more guilty.   
It was strange, the last thing they went in Hatori's car... the five of them, was on the trip to the Sohma's resting place near the lake. The situation had been the same, when Kyou, Yuki and Hatori didn't say anything, and Shigure laughed by his own... but this time their trip was for a place that was not far away, for the Sohma Honke complex.

The place was still large as usual, with houses here and there, larger than even her school. But no one had said anything when they reached there, just like a silent graveyard. She tried to think about something else as they walked to the Honke -main house-, passing the unknown corridors.  
She saw the cherry blossoms in the way... pink, and pastel, so beautiful and exuberant... yet living in a short period. By the time, people was sitting under them, having Hanami -flower viewing-, enjoying sake, karaoke, and make themselves comfortable under the pink flowers, enjoying their life... enjoying their short period of living...   
Of course, she could do so too... If one thought that he or she would die somehow, they should enjoy it while he or she could... That was Japanese philosophy, proven by how they enjoyed the sakura with Hanami every year...

She smiled, yes, no matter what, you should enjoy your life... At the same time, her heart ached, why? Maybe, she thought that her time was near, or maybe the people all around her thought so too... She let her heart hurting herself, enjoying the feeling... when will she feel it again, the only thing she could do... just enjoying her life...

The men stopped their steps in front of a closed shouji, that no doubt, leading to a big room. There, would be waiting... the leader of Sohma family. She halted her steps too. It was the second time she would see Akito in the same room. She stopped Hatori's hands that wanted to open the sliding door. She answered their confused eyes with kneeling in front of the door, and opened it slowly, in the way like women in old Japanese era did.

"I'm Honda Tohru." She said calmly, to the man that facing his back on her, and the others... Yes, the others... in the room he could see the other five Junishis; Ayame, Hatsuharu, Momiji, Ritsu and Hiro, sitting on their knees. All of their eyes were on the blank spots of the tatami... She amused when she saw their eyes, the exact 'I'll let her die soon' eyes. She was on her feet after that, her sudden bravery shocked the rest of them, as well shocking herself. She took a place few meters behind Akito, in front of the rest of the Junishis, and sat. "You call me, Akito-san?"

No answer from Akito. Behind her, Hatori, Shigure, Yuki and Kyou took their places to sit. After two of sakura petals fell, Akito still didn't answer, the third one fell on his hair.

"Akito-san, there a petal on your hair." She said, this of course, made the other Junishis lifted their eyes to Akito's hair in fear. They could only see Tohru's back, and Akito's back. But they knew that Tohru was smiling, and guessed that Akito was angry.

One of Akito's hands reached the thing mentioned in his head. "--- Thank you... Tohru-kun..." they could hear sound of a smirk behind it. Tohru only cocked her head and replied 'you're welcomed'.

"Akito-san, if you kind enough to tell me why you call me to this place?" The others didn't ask anything about this. Of course, they didn't dare. But they also wondered what had made the girl have so much courage so she could throw the question to the clan leader. No one, ever questioned the kacho.

"Nothing." Akito answered soon enough, his back was still facing him. He for himself still looking to the opened shouji in front of him, facing the yard, full of cherry blossoms. "I just suddenly want to call you here."

Shigure narrowed his eyes when Tohru suddenly said. "So, it has nothing to do with your feelings towards me, Akito-san?" That same time, all the eyes quickly turned to the girl's back. Some performing silent questions, under their breaths, as the girl continued. "I heard from Shigure-san that you had certain feelings towards me..." Shigure didn't make any expression as the other Junishis questioning eyes went to him.

Akito then laughed, quietly. "What kind of things that Shigure had said?"

"You hated me at first."  
"That's true." A chuckle.  
"And then, you didn't accept my behavior at my last visit."  
"That is also correct."  
"You started asking me."  
"I won't debate."  
"Then you're paying more attention to my conditions that you care for any other Junishis."

Akito didn't say anything for a while, then he turned his body, so the others could see him smiling towards the girl, and then to the dog. "Well, you're right, Tohru-kun. But I think I should teach some of the bunke people how to shut his mouth." Bunke was the sub-clan of a family, under the rule of Honke, of course he was mentioning Shigure in that case.

"I'm sorry for my lack of ability." Shigure just bowed once to Akito. "It won't happen again."

"Well, I hope so." Akito turned his gaze back to the girl in front of her. "Now for you, Tohru."

"Ah, please, don't do any harm towards Shigure-san." Tohru then commented, her voice was like her usual voice. No forced tone. Just like when she was talking with Hanajima Saki or Uotani Arisa. "He was just expressing his feelings. I do believe we have freedom of speech here."

"So caring, as usual." Akito took few steps closer towards the girl. Not just Yuki or Kyou, the rest of Junishis tried to hold the urge to go to Akito's place and made him stop from getting nearer to the girl. "But I somehow wanted to know what he had done to you, Tohru-kun."

Tohru lifted her eyebrows for a second. "He had done what you'd asked all of the Junishis to do."  
"Oh." Akito of course understood what she meant. "Was it consensual?"  
Tohru shut her mouth.  
"He raped you."  
Gasps.  
"That's a cruel statement, Akito-san." Tohru bent her neck to one side. "I couldn't say that to the person that kind enough to take care of me for a long time."

Akito then laughed, surprising everybody, except of course, Tohru and Shigure, who had seen that coming before. "Caring, cute little Honda Tohru." His chuckled continued, to a lower and cold laughter... Laughter that she hadn't heard anywhere else. His eyes then looking at her, staring through her. Her body was paralyzed. She couldn't even make a single move, as the man in front of him, looking at her, gazing at her with looks she couldn't describe. True if she had seen him more than twice, but none of the experiences helped her. She hadn't felt any emotions more mixed than she was experiencing at 'this' time.

Akito took a step closer. Behind him, the opened shouji was showing the background of the falling cherry blossoms at the Sohma Honke's yard, and that time, she had seen another side of beauty... A beauty that she hadn't seen before...  
If it was true that devil had also have their attractions, then she had seen Sohma's devil, in his own beauty... and the devil was descending himself in front of her... He smiled, with his devilish way, his hand touched her cheek, brushing lightly; his hand was cold. Tohru didn't move.

"Get out." An order from Akito. Usually they soon obeyed, but they didn't move any inch. Akito brought Tohru's head to his chest, under his chest; glaring to the other Junishis that looked him with hate and anger. But the clan head only smirked, satisfied. "Out, I say."

Shigure was the first one who stood to his feet, but he didn't move. Hiro then went out with a grunt, followed by others that peeking Akito and Tohru with hatred eyes before they were out from the room. Shigure was the last... "Close the door, Shigure." Akito said, and the dog obeyed.

"I hope I'm kind enough for you, Tohru-kun, so they didn't see you in my hands." Akito whispered, after a long time she was in his embrace.

"I am in your hands, Akito-san."

Akito chuckled; he then lifted Tohru head, and trailing her chin with his fingers. "You're a true beauty, you know that, Tohru-kun?"

"Akito-san?" She blushed when Akito made the distance between their face nearer. "I don't understand." She said as Akito brushed her hair to one side, and started to bit her neck slowly. "I know that you're also a beautiful person, so are the others---!" She halted her words when she felt sharp teeth penetrated her flesh.

"Don't talk about the others, in front of me, Tohru-kun." He got her answer from her nod. "Now, just obey me, or they will not have my mercy." He then nibbled at the skin of her arched neck. "Ah, good girl, Tohru-kun." He brushed his lips and tongue along the distance between her chin and under her ear. He heard a silent moan from her as he titled her head with his one hand and landed his lips on hers; he slowly bit her lower lip, as he ran his hand under her skirt.

Momiji couldn't hold his tears at the other side of the door. His tears were falling through his cheeks, to his chin and then fell to the wooden floor. He bit his lower lip so hard, till it was bleeding, just to stop his voice for becoming too loud. "Tohru--- I'm sorry, I'm sorry---" was mentioned every now and then between his sobs.

Ritsu was standing next to the half-breed boy. He held the little boy's shoulder with one hand, the other was on his lips, also to stop his voice from raising. Identical tears were running from his hazel eyes. Hiro had gone somewhere else, maybe he didn't care, or he didn't like to show his tears in front of the others.

Shigure just stood still, not facing anybody, just looking to the falling sakura petals in the other side of the yard, as if he was admiring them, not worrying about anything else. Ayame was following the other's gaze, then he just shook his head. Hatori had been keeping his eyes to the door, if he only had the ability to look through things than to erase other's memories...

Yuki was doing the same with Hatori.

They were all have same feelings in their heart, as well, hearing something else after they left the room; Kyou saying. "Now I can thankful I'm not a part of the Junishi. I don't have to pay the same sin as you do."

"You don't have to hold your voice, you can scream." Akito's voice, hoarse, tired.  
"Nnn... no..." Tohru answered silently, her face was blushing more red than reddest, same tiredness as the clan leader, but holding more pain than him.  
"ah... I... will..." Akito's voice was stopped, pushing the girl deeper into him.

Yuki gritted his teeth. It voiced. Go on, he screamed to himself. Break yourselves, I don't need any more teeth, I don't need anything...  
I don't need... anything...

"Why you didn't scream?"  
"I don't need to scream."  
Silent for a while. "You're doing this out of your will? Because my threat?"  
"No, I'm willing to do this..." She said, it was enough.  
"... Why?"  
"... Or because you pity me? Pity for my short life?"  
"... ... ... No, Akito-san. I'm just admiring you, and I'm doing my best for you."  
"... Why?"  
"Because you're just like them, the sakura... you've a short life, that was true indeed." A gap of time. "I'm just helping you enjoying your time... For you, only live for that short time."  
"... ah..." A sigh. "Tohru-kun, maybe you're really stupid."

* * *

X. The Shining Silver  
I'm sorry...  
(Yuki x Tohru)

I know I'm not a good artist, but I make something for this part, it's at http://www.geocities.com/lemonishida/gallery/furuba2.htm  
Oh yeah, I heard something about the 10th male Junishi... hmm, I don't know anything about him (Arisa's boyfriend). So, please just for this fic, imagine he was not there... please? I'm sorry to bother.  
While making this part, the author's listening to Do As Infinity's "week!", "Wings", "Fukai Mori", "Tsubasa no Keikaku", "We are", "Desire", "Rumble Fish"


	10. The Shining Silver (Yuki x Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: March 4th, 2002  
Finish: March 5th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

X. The Shining Silver  
I'm sorry...  
(Yuki x Tohru)

It was maybe an hour or two later... they kept waiting in front of the door, leading to the next room... one meter that would break their curiosity, but the time they do that, was the time when Akito would be very angry, and it would maybe be the last day for Tohru Honda in Sohma's residence. They couldn't do that... they were hopeless... ants were even better than they were right then, they could sneak through the door and bit Akito's feet... that wouldn't mean much, but at least, that was something.

Momiji and Ritsu had been crying for their helplessness, then Momiji didn't afford to give any more tears, and he was weak. Hatori then took the half German boy to his house, not forgetting to bring Ritsu too. Shigure and Ayame followed Hatori. Hatsuharu, Kyou and Hiro were nowhere to be found. It was no longer useful to wait in front of the door, that wouldn't change anything, only to deepen their suffer, and her suffer.

Yuki didn't care it would prolong his suffer, his sadness, or his shame of his own powerless self. But he wouldn't turn his back on Tohru. Well, maybe the others didn't turn their back on her with leaving her with the head clan because they couldn't do anything; but, at least, if Tohru suffer from something, he had something in his heart, pushing him to feel her suffer too.

The noises disturbing him, he dig memories in his head, trying to think something nice and pleasuring, something that would forget the things happened not far away from him. But those things would let him only to the girl, to their first meeting, to the places where she caught his heart, and made him felt something different every time she had done something.

Damnit, this isn't going to work. He cursed in his head...

...! Suddenly the shouji in front of him was opened, his sitting form only permit him to see feet... a pair of feet, Akito's. He lifted his head to see the kacho, glaring at him. "Yuki, what are you doing here?" Yuki didn't answer, he felt he didn't need to. He thought that Akito himself knew the answer as the later chuckled, "of course, how can I be so stupid." His head then turned this way and that way, slowly. He then continued. "So the others are back? Where's Hatori?"

"Momiji, Ritsu, niisan," -he mentioned Ayame- "Shigure are in Hatori's house. If you're searching for Hatori, you will find him there too."

"Ah, I see." He then walked passing the sitting Yuki, like they way he usually walked, like something had never happened, that... satan. Yuki narrowed his eyes when he found a new description for the clan leader. The later just said before his voice died, as did his presence. "Of course, I'll call Hatori... as soon as I finish my bath."

Disgusting. The only thing Yuki had in his mind when he caught the meaning at the last sentence. He remembered something and moved his head towards the room, he walked in, and found Tohru, sitting precisely in the same position as he had seen before. She put her hand above another, head was down, looking as they were the most interesting things in the world... she was fully clothed...

"Don't come here, Yuki-kun. It smells awful in here."

Yuki bit his lower lip. No, no, no, no, he repeated the single word inside his head. Don't think about anything, don't think about Akito, he screamed to himself. He clenched his fist and kneeled in front of the girl, touching her shoulder slowly, afraid she would toss it away, like she had done when Hatsuharu almost had her.  
It didn't happen, she didn't jerk his hand; instead, she titled her head... he thought he would see her crying, but she was not, she only bent her neck to one side and watching Yuki, staring at him... curiously. "Why you're still here, Yuki-kun?"

He didn't see that coming. He didn't know what to do, what to say, and the only thing he did just turned his eyes from hers. The more he saw that, the more he didn't understand the situation. The more things... were complicated for him... Why, why could the girl don't cry after what Akito had done to her?   
"No," the only thing managed to get out from his mouth. "Just want to see if you're alright..."

"Yes." She smiled, tapping the boy's hand on her shoulder. "I'm alright, Yuki-kun. Thank you for worrying me. But I completely alright."

"Ah." He breathed. He felt the girl moved his hand from her body, and put it above his own lap. He didn't see the girl's face, but the atmosphere was enough for him to guess that Tohru was smiling her usual smile, dedicated to the man that had worried for her.

... ... ... No voices. Only sounds, from the wind blew the fragrances of flowers into the room. "I'm sorry..." He then said, thinking that it was the perfect time to say the word that had been hanging in his heart. "I'm terribly sorry, Honda-san... I don't mean... I---" He stopped, when she saw Tohru was staring at him, not blankly, not with sadness or anger like he had predicted, but with all of her attention, like she was trying to remember him, to savor him, trying to swallow every little details of him, like a mother's eyes, that knew that she would no longer see her son... He didn't know since when she had been gazing at him... but her eyes told, that she had been doing that since he entered the room.

"Honda-san, are you alright? Do you want to go back?"

He had expected her to be surprised to break her eyes, but no, she kept on looking at him, and smiled, as turning her eyes to the sakura filled yard in front of her eyes. "Ah, I think I want to stay here for a while, for Akito-san too allow me to stay as I like." Speechless he was when he heard her saying the thing that hadn't crossed his mind.

"A--- Akito? Honda-san?" He repeated the worried tone. "Are you alright?"

Tohru was silent for a while, the nodded, just when Yuki wanted to say 'Are you sure', Tohru had already spoken. "You know, Yuki-kun, the first time I stay a night in Shigure-san's house was because my sudden illness." She smiled, closing her eyes, recalling all the times had passed. "I remembered, that time, I set a camp in Sohma's family land, without knowing it. And that time, I met Shigure-san... and the little crafts of Junishis, without the cat..."

Yuki didn't know how to comment on this, but he didn't need to, as Tohru continued. "Then I met Kyou-kun, Momiji-kun, Hatori-san, Hatsuharu-san, Ritsu-san... so many, ah, so many memories that I couldn't remember it at the same time... all beautiful memories that I want to collect every piece, and save in my mind... so precious..."

"Honda-san," Yuki then set courage on himself, for him, once again, put a hand on Tohru shoulder, and another her set hands above her palm. "You don't need to remember them suddenly in such a short time. You can have all the time in the world to have them in your mind."

Tohru wrinkled her eyebrows, like she needed so much time to catch what Yuki had told her, until she finally sighed, and smiled, half for herself, half for Yuki. "You're right, Yuki-kun. I still have all the time in my world." She then laughed, "I will remember each and every plant you had grown in your secret base, I will remember that Kyou-kun doesn't like leek, I will remember that Shigure actually like to play with Mitchan, his editor, and Momiji like to wear girl's uniform... and Hatsuharu-san---"

She halted, no, he halted her train of words when Yuki gently put his forehead on hers. He was aware what he was doing, he half opened his eyes, looking thoroughly to the girl, who, for his first time in that hour, widened her eyes in surprise, the reaction that he had expected. "---Yuki-kun?"

"Suddenly you've been so noisy about them all." He said, she felt his breath touching her face, making her blush with the sudden lowness of his voice, and his closeness. "Please Honda-san, whatever Akito-san had done for you, please relax."

Tohru lifted her eyebrows for a while, and then she smiled again. "And Yuki-kun still have a relationship to be mend with his brother." She sighed, and then she moved her head, putting it on one of Yuki's shoulder. "Suddenly I felt tired."

"... I know." Yuki then put his hands behind her back, caressing her, although he knew that Tohru Honda, the Tohru Honda he knew, had never spoken the word 'tired', he even doubt that the word was written in her dictionary of life. But, he thought that that time was an exception, he knew what had happened to the girl a moment ago...  
And having her in his arms... he would...  
No, he would never, he would never take any chance of her weakness for his private emotions only... if he had done that, he would have been another Akito.

"You know, Yuki-kun." He heard her say. "If you have anything to me, now it's the time." ... ... Now, he was dreaming, or Tohru could play 'reading minds' with him. "Maybe there's no other time when we can be alone like this," she then continued. "About school, about Ayame-san, about your feelings to the other Junishi, or about Akito-san..."

"What did Akito tell you?" He felt the sudden change in his voice, in his blood when he heard the girl mentioned the clan leader's name.

"Nothing." She chuckled, as if she had been expecting him saying the sentence. "Akito-san too, was only talking about his private emotions... Nothing special, nothing different..."

"Is that so?"  
"Yes."  
"Really?"  
"Really, Yuki-kun." Simple straight answer.

Silent, for a while, before Yuki broke it again. "Honda-san, are you sure you want to hear what I wanted to say?" She didn't answer but he felt her nod. Answer enough, and Yuki took all the air near him for his breath...

"Honda-san, I like you."

"Akito?" Hatori repeated. Not far from him, were some of the Junishis; Momiji quitted sipping his mug of chocolate when Hatori mentioned the name, Ritsu who had been silent all along, moved his head towards the doctor, fear and confusion in his eyes, then Shigure and Ayame too, followed Hatori's gaze to the servant from the main house, who had told the dragon a moment ago, that Akito wanted to meet him.

"Why it's only Tori-san? Are you sure he didn't call the rest of us?" Ayame's question was soon answered by a shook of head from the servant.

Hatori didn't reply to the servant's request. He just stood there, putting his hands in his pocket. "I see..." He then said, but didn't continued with any other words, for the others knew, that the last person they wanted to meet at that time was Akito himself. Despite of all of things they had given them, or what the life that the clan leader would give for them, still... he was the last person on their list to be met.

But, disobeying Akito's words, meant the end.

"Ah." It was more than enough for the servant that the dragon would meet the clan leader.

He might not see what expression that Tohru was doing, but he knew that she was smiling, like she knew that all along. "Thank you, Yuki-kun, for believing me." The only answer from the girl. But it made him curious enough... if it was the original Tohru, she would blush, looking for words that would end like 'I'm not a perfect person for Yuki-kun' or something like that.  
"But, Yuki-kun, I'm afraid I can't return your feelings equally... for I know that Yuki-kun really mean it." That was the thing that he had been afraid of, he afraid she would reject his feelings. He felt his body went weak, as Tohru put her arms on his shoulders, and squeezed them gently. "But I'll do my best as myself, to care about Yuki-kun... I love Yuki-kun, and so I love the other Junishis, Kyou-kun, Momiji-kun, Hatsuharu-san, Hatori-san, Ritsu-san, and others they were all have my care... for I too, care for Akito-san."

Yuki then shook his head, no, this was not right, she was too naive, she didn't know the real Akito behind his mask, she hadn't felt how it was to be locked in a dark room full of tortures.

"Please, Yuki-kun, don't think about Akito-san like that... Akito-san... had never been loved like he wanted to be... he had no chance to open himself... because, Yuki-kun... you were all afraid of him, you thought him not as your cousin, but as your leader, that would sacrifice himself...  
Akito-san, only needed a friend, he needed one that could understand him equally, treat him equally... one that would love him... Yuki-kun and the others were afraid of Akito-san... but, he said, that he was more afraid...

"Akito-san said to me, he cried then, he cursed me, and you all, he said that I was stupid and you were all junks... but then he was sorry..."

That egoistical bastard, Yuki cursed between his rushing angry breaths. No, you're wrong, Honda-san... Akito just a selfish bastard that wants anything for himself, even with acting, you've been tricked, you're too naive... Honda-san, please don't...

"Akito-san, couldn't make himself happy... So, he made others unhappy... Akito-san just had it the wrong way, he didn't know anything else to do, when your body was weak, when you're not permitted to go outside, when anything to do was wrong, Akito-san was just a victim."

"Honda-san...?"

"Akito-san just need something that make him enjoy his life until the last... he want to live his fullest to the end. I too, if I would die in a matter of seconds, I would do anything to live with all of my strength... and I... I said to him, that I would do anything to make him happy..." She released herself from Yuki's hands, her eyes met with Yuki's.  
"It's funny, starts from a little things, don't you think so too, Yuki-kun?"

"Honda-san, do you?"

Tohru moved her eyes from Yuki's gaze, looking behind him, to rows of cherry blossoms behind him. "Sakura is sure beautiful... Akito-san too, is like those sakura, beautiful, fragile and not for eternity... only talking with Akito-san, made me realize that there was a side full of doubt that my mother hadn't told me before... But, I know I should help Akito-san, and I said I would give myself for him..."

"Honda-san...?" Yuki's words died for a moment. "Give yourself? Honda-san? What do you mean?"

She smiled. "I just do things my own way, just like what my mother said... If Akito wanted to give his life the fullest, I too, wanted to give my fullest to him..." She stopped, and sighed again, for the times that she herself didn't know. "... My mother had said to me, that I look like an angel." She chuckled. "Then you all always said things, like Akito-san is the devil. It's so strange, isn't it?"

Yes, it was so strange.

"But Akito-san was kind enough to give me time to remember all of memories, not to regret, but to remember, to laugh by myself, and to cry with only myself, as those times passed through my mind... ah, I want to keep them all---"

Small drops of tears... were falling from above. But not from the girl's... but from the bluish eyes.

"Yuki-kun, Akito-san said something where he's going to?" The girl narrowed her eyes when she saw the mouse's... "Yuki-kun, are you crying? Why are you crying? Please, Yuki-kun, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to make you worried. I should have been here myself, Yuki-kun."

"Honda-san, how could you?"

Tohru just shook her head. "I'm sorry, Yuki-kun. But Akito-san needs me more. He needs all of my attention, Yuki-kun."

/It's not fair... selfish bastard... Akito... is too selfish... until when, he want to play games like this? Until when he want to torture us to pieces? Until when? Why he uses Honda-san for this? Why? Why?/

Hatori's eyebrows met at the base of his nose. He could be angry, he could be sad, he could be confused... but even the mix of all those feelings couldn't explain what he had in his head, in his heart, in all his senses right then. It was too absurd. Of all the things that he thought Akito would do towards the girl, 'that' had not crossed his mind, even once. It was more a hell than torture.

"So, Akito-san really went to Hatori-san's place." She beamed her smiled. It was so pure, no tears, no regret, only desire to help. It was not fair if a man like Akito would get Tohru just for himself, Yuki kept on screaming words in his mind. "But I still have time until tomorrow, before Hatori-san really erases my memories."

Not fair. Damn Akito.

* * *

X. Opening of the end  
Children never lies II  
(Hiro + Tohru)

The next part will be the last before the last. Akito supposed to call Tohru with "Tohru-san", I just realized when I saw the 13th episode of anime. I'm sorry for the mistake.  
While making this part, the author's still listening to Do As Infinity's songs.


	11. Opening of the end (Hiro + Tohru)

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: March 6th, 2002  
Finish: March 6th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

X. Opening of the end  
Children never lies II  
(Hiro + Tohru)

There would be times when you regretted all the things in the world. There would be a time when you would ask yourself why you were born. But when you thought about it deeper, you would realize that you had to thank all the things in the world, you should to thank your mother that you had been born. When you regretted why you didn't have a good luck or a good body, you should look to ones who hadn't had hands, feet, or the ones who were mentally unstable. If you want to curse the day or the time, you should look to a person that were sentenced death by judge, or doctor...

But Tohru Honda would never regret anything, as she knew that she should use the last day before all her experiences with the other Junishis disappear, not to regret the day she met with everyone, but to remember every little pieces of them. No one should disturb, and no one would... for they also knew, they couldn't do anything if they met the girl.

"Tohru-san," the night before, Akito came to the room he had prepared for her. "Sorry for disturbing you." He then said. The girl just smiled and nodded, permitting the man to enter, and he did; behind him, were Hatori and Shigure, both were looking at her with words she couldn't describe, and she just widened her smile. She just nodded, saying a short "I see".

Akito raised his eyebrows for a while, it was a question. The girl just shook her head. "I'm sorry... Yuki-kun met me this afternoon."  
"Yuki said something?"  
"He said you were not fair."  
"Ah," Akito smirked. "Is that so?"  
"You're laughing, Akito-san."   
The girl's comment just made the kacho chuckled lightly. "I'm sorry. I just somehow knew that he would say that." The girl just answered his sentence with a short smile.

"I'd just asked Hatori this morning to perform the partial memory erase for you." When Akito said it, Tohru eyes moved towards the doctor, who were questioning her, but more afraid to hear her affirmative answer from the girl, the eyes that permit him to do it... as the girl half bowed to the doctor and said 'I'm sorry to bother you, Hatori-san.'

"Akito." Shigure then asked, after it had been silent for a while. "But why you must erase Tohru-kun's memories? You didn't need to do that if she'd already giving herself towards you. You didn't need to act that far."

Akito didn't answer what Shigure had said, he only looked to the girl and said. "Tohru-san, what Hatori will do to you tomorrow would be very much different from usual thing he did. It will be a little painful for you."  
"I understand."  
"Akito," Shigure's voice again.

"Shut your mouth." Akito orders were final, and Shigure did. After that, Akito just wanted them to get out from the room, leaving Tohru and himself alone in that room.

The night had been so short. She didn't know if Akito also felt the shortness of the night, when he knew that maybe tomorrow, or the next day, he would die. Akito and her were very much a different person. She didn't know why he would sacrifice her memories about the other Junishis for the man... but she felt she had to, when she heard what the man would do for the rest of them, for her...

"TO HELL WITH AKITO!!!" The voice distracted her from her mind, and she realized where she was. She was in front of the room, where Hatori had been waiting for her. Behind the shouji -paper made sliding door-, she could hear, the others' voices. Of course, the one who had been screaming was the cat, seemed very angry. She then closed her eyes, trying to concentrate with her ears, catching and remembering every voices of the Junishis...

Shigure's voice... "Kyou-kun, lower your voice if not, Akito will---"   
"I DON'T CARE IF AKITO HEARS IT!!! LET HIM!!! DAMNIT!! TO HEAR THAT AKITO WOULD ERASE HER MEMORIES FROM KUSONEZUMI'S LIPS, I---"  
"You think I said it with pleasure, bakaneko?"  
Sobbing sounds, maybe Ritsu's... "Stop it... stop it..."

A whole set of debates, she could catch Momiji's sobs, Ayame's, Hatsuharu's, and Hatori's breaths. One more people, oh, the little Hiro. To think of it, she hadn't heard anything from the sheep, had he told Kisa yet? How was Kisa doing, and some questions came through to her head... too long until she thought that she would prolong the time, Akito had promised to him... Akito had...   
She pulled her breath, and opened the door...

Quiet, she could feel the tense when she entered the room. Everyone was pulling their breaths. "Excuse me," she said, everyone jerked their heads, avoiding the girl's eyes. She kneeled in front of the door, and bowed, although no one was looking. "Thank you to come here."

"Don't thank us, Tohru-kun." Shigure said, trying to cheer the heavy atmosphere with his usual voice. "Akito had asked us to come... to see your memories erased---" He face faulted when he felt all eyes were glaring at him, as if they were threats. "---or so..."

"I see." Tohru smiled. "Well, thank you."

It was silent for a while, when Hatori set his feet, preparing to stand up, when everybody was holding their breaths... but that was when a word was launched in the silence... not a scream, nor a yell... but a simple word, said casually, but loud and clear enough...

"Slut."

Everyone paused, their bodies were stiffened. Tohru was also, felt the word pierced through her skin, and went with the flow of her blood, transporting the single word to all over her bodies.  
Yuki turned his head, eyes in hate, Kyou with the look that can kill, it was no use to explain all of them, for they, only had two reactions to the word that had been said by the youngest, by Hiro Sohma... it was either angry, or surprised.

But Hiro's gaze was only for Tohru's ducked face, as he continued. "I'd never thought you're such a slut. I'd thought you're different from others when you'd made Kisa speak. I thought you are stupid... well, maybe you're so stupid...  
But so stupid so you sold yourself to Akito.  
What did Akito ask you, anyway? Our freedom, money, power? Or was it yourself that was looking for Sohma's family treasures?"

Angry, maybe that was the single emotion that they had in their mind right then, their animal instincts had made them almost loose their tempers... Even Momiji and Ritsu, who had never thought about the current feeling, wanted to swallow the sheep at the place.

"Fine if you're all angry. You'd been babbling and crying about her all the time, what's the point to give her pity?" He then continued. "For she only just a slut for Aki---"

They didn't know she could move that fast, but she herself didn't know how her body react, when the thing she realized was she was in front of Hiro, a hand was thrown, she almost slapped the little boy, and the boy had already closed his eyes, when the hand stopped, right in front of his cheek.  
"Uh." She muttered, she bit her lower lip, maybe it was hurting her, that her tears were fallen from her eyes... the tears Yuki hadn't even seen when Tohru had told him that her memories would be erased.

Her hands then suddenly fell to his shoulder, pushing the little boy into her embrace. "I'm sorry, Hiro-san, I'm sorry..." She managed to say behind her tears. "I'm sorry, I almost slap you... I can't believe myself... I would... I'm sorry, Hiro-san, I'm sorry..."

Hiro didn't answer even a word. Some tears from her eyes dropped to his hair, some of them sliding from her cheeks to her chin, to her neck, then they reached Hiro's forehead, landing on Hiro's eyes... they wetted his eyes; as her words were only 'I'm sorry, Hiro-san'...  
This... whore... Hiro screamed in his head... hugged me... this... this... Hiro hugged her back, almost made her couldn't breath. "Damnit..." he whispered. "Why you can only give me those words... say something else... will you..." His voice tone went higher. "Why? onee-chan?" He called her with 'sister'. "Why? Why you let Akito erase your memories? Do you regret it? Do you regret meeting with us? Are you the same with anyone else? Why, onee-chan? Why?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Tohru-san."  
"It is alright, Akito-san. I only do my best for you..."  
"The others will hate me..."  
"Yes, they will. I'm sorry to include you in this problem."  
"No, I'm the one who should apologize. But nothing else, can make me thank you, or your stupidity?"  
She only chuckled.

"... I don't regret anything, Hiro-san." She heard her own voice. "I too, for a while, regretting myself, that will forget Hiro-san... and the others... because I respect my memories... With memories, and experiences, I know I am a human...  
I eat, I walk, I sleep, I have felt anger when Hiro-san stole my mother's picture from me, I feel delight when I first meet with Hiro-san... I feel sadness and all... those were all human's feelings... When you regret something because of something you'd done, Hiro-san... that was the time when you regret you had became a human.

"I am a human, when my mother died, I'm sad... but I'm not regretting the times I had passed with her. With Yuki-kun, Kyou-kun, Shigure-san, Momiji-kun, Hatori-san, Hatsuharu-san, Ritsu-san, Ayame-san, and with you, Hiro-san... all are pleasurable memories for me."

"Then why... why... you let yourself..."

"That, Hiro-san, is a secret, that only Akito and I know." He could feel her smiling in above him, then her lips moved to his ear. Her whispers were tickling. "But if Hiro-san wants to know..."

Words, silent words. Hiro widened his eyes, suddenly blushed, then he quickly released himself from her embrace looking at her with disbelief. She only laughed. "You're lying..." Hiro's words only answered by a affirmative chuckle from the girl. The others raised their eyebrows, demanding for an answer, the sentence, the secret that only Tohru, Akito, and 'then', Hiro, knew. She only smiled, 'It's a secret', she said... but she knew... somehow Hiro would tell them, sooner or later... for children... never lies...

Her face then moved to the doctor, to Hatori. She stood and walked in front of him. Her steps were slow, but they were sure. So then after she sat in front of him. "I'm sorry to bother you, Hatori-san. I heard from Akito-san that you would be a little exhausted after you erased my memories."

Hatori only shook his head. "I thought I had told you to call me with my name only."

She smiled. "Yes, Hatori. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to." He stopped saying anything for a while. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes."

"... so," He put his hands in front of her face, covering her eyes with his fingers to close her sight.

"But just remember," her lips moved. "I don't regret meeting with all of you."

Hatori clenched his other fist. "I know." He said, pulling all his breaths. Maybe the time had been stopping moving, as she felt something sucked from all of her, as memories flashed through her minds, as if her books and pictures of the past were taken from her little mind, she could even heard all the voices of the past;  
"--- I'm so stupid desu---"  
--- If the snow melts, what do you think it will be?"  
--- Everybody have umeboshi on their backs."  
--- Someday I'll pull the word 'I'm sorry' out of your mouth!!!"  
--- Somehow he had managed to let the Black Haru out."  
--- The sunset in the mountain, 'deru-deru' Momiji---"  
--- What's with the 'onee-chan' 'onee-chan' all the time!?"  
--- Hello 'shou-kun', and my little brother..."  
--- I'msosorryI'msososorry!!

---- ---- --- if Tohru does things with her own way...---- ---- ---- ----

---ma Tohru..." faint voices. "You--- me--- ru--- ma---- Your--- me--- is---- ru--- Soh---..." It was getting clearer and clearer. "--- you're name form now--- n is Tohru Sohma---"

Hiro closed his eyes as Hatori continued the words, the sentences that Akito had told him to say; to erase Tohru's memories, also to replace the loopholes with the plot the kacho -clan leader- had prepared before, to fill the empty box with the new contents. Hatori had never done that before, only erase something from some points, but not to add new facts...

Kyou had gone, maybe he didn't afford to hear more... The others, didn't say anything, some of them had no more tears to shed. Hiro shook his head, he didn't believe her, he didn't believe what she was going to do... as she remembered the last thing the girl mentioned towards him.

"You know, Hiro-san. Akito wants a child, but he doesn't want it to be born from a non-Sohma."

If it was a joke, the girl sure knew how to make a good one. But, maybe she hadn't lied... When he told Kisa about this, maybe it could turn her tears into laughters...

* * *

XII. Epilogue

While making this part, the author's listening to Jamaican Cafe's (their version of) "You to me are everything" and "Can't take my eyes off you"


	12. Epilogue

Author's note, Keywords and Warnings:  
See the prologue.

Start: March 7th, 2002  
Finish: March 8th, 2002

* * *

exuberance

XII. Epilogue

"...Your name from now on is Tohru Sohma,  
Your parents are part of the Sohma Bunke, that live faraway from the main house, but very much know the secrets of the Junishis.  
After they had died, Akito called you, for taking care of him... in other words, also, to keep an eye of you...  
Your name from now on is Tohru Sohma,  
Tohru Sohma,  
Tohru  
Soh  
ma  
..."

It had been more than 5 years ago. But it felt like seconds for him, second since he heard the voices of the dragon cursed Junishi, planting new memories, pieces by pieces by seconds, minutes, and hours. Then Hatori had been the one to pass out first, because his stamina was drained... just to erase her memories. Of course, the process hadn't been finished, and Tohru had been sitting like a doll with blank eyes, waiting for Hatori to wake up and continue the little ceremony... and after some time, it was pretty much finished, the new Sohma, who was not a Sohma.

But they didn't let it finished just like that. It had been a pretty torture for Hatori, to go to every place, to erase every person's memory about a girl named Tohru Honda. It took time to make Uotani Arisa's and Hanajima Saki's forget the little girl and her mother. Her grandfather soon after, and some friends they knew... Soon, they were no one called Tohru Honda in Japan, and even in the world...

Everybody didn't comment anything when a Sohma named Tohru came to the Honke, called by Akito to nurse him... that was the plan. Yuki, and the others didn't know what had Akito done to her, but Hatori was pretty sure that he didn't planted any memories for the girl to love, or have any affection to the clan head, nor any hints towards it... But suddenly, a konyaku -an engagement ceremony- had held in Sohma Honke residence; for the kacho, Akito Sohma would be engaged with Tohru Sohma...

Three months after that, the rest of the Junishis had received a kekkon shiki -marriage ceremony- invitation, held also in the main house, because of Akito's condition. Then, at the first time, the other Junishis, for the first time five long years, and Tohru, had seen each other. She had only peeked them at the corner of her eyes when she received the sanzan kudo no sakazuki ceremony, the one when the brides and the groom sipped different cups; the climax of a Shinto wedding ceremony.

After that only a small reception, in there were the important members of Sohma family, giving greetings and congratulations to the new husband and wife.  
"Oh, my, I met the Junishis!" Every person in the Junishis could still hear her voice, delighted, when Akito had introduced them to her... for the first time... "I can't believe I finally met them, I only knew about them from my mother." Then she laughed, Akito just smiled... pretty much as a husband.

It was all about the emotions, when she greeted each one of them, and asked the animals that cursed them. All of them, was trying to get their emotions under control... but when suddenly the girl had reached Kisa... the little tiger suddenly cried, sobbed, and went to Tohru's embrace, making the new wife of the Sohma kacho, who was completely shocked. That time, they would be sure that Akito would show some anger, anger that his possession was shared, taken but somebody else. But Akito had been standing all along, watching his new wife's back, the new wife who had been comforting the little girl... with a pair of eyes that they hadn't seen before...

They didn't know if they should be happy, or felt sick... because with that little scene, they knew that Akito had changed... it looked like Tohru was the only person in his eyes, and the only thing he cared was her happiness. He was enjoying himself, just because of her existence near him... or because he knew that no one would take her from his side?

Is this the Akito that Honda-san had been searching for? Yuki had asked himself back then. Did Honda-san prepare to loose us, for this? He couldn't help to feel disgust in himself. But, what could he do... no one had ever made Akito to be like that, because no one had ever given his or her all towards the leader... maybe she was right...  
If they hadn't been afraid of Akito, if they had opened themselves more towards Akito... Tohru wouldn't had to have her memories erased...

It was very much a regret.

"I wouldn't envy Akito, even though he had changed." Scarlet eyes gazed through his cousin's bluish one. "When he had finished with Tohru," he meant that when Akito was no more in the world. "Take care of her, for me too." That was the last thing Kyou had said before he went off, setting himself for a new journey. Amazingly, Yuki had known... Yuki actually understood the cat's feelings at that time.

Ayame, his brother; Hatsuharu, Momiji, and Ritsu's lives had been changed little by little... No need to explain why... Just the same thing as the fact that the world was spinning everyday, things changed, and that was the way it supposed to be. Nothing special... but they were all significant...  
Memories were also significant.

Hatori was the only person who had been absent in some circumstances. He had been caging himself in his house for a long time, and went out only when he was called. From Shigure, Yuki knew, that Hatori was studying a counter hypnotize, that could... somehow, brought someone's erased memories back. Shigure, who had never gone to the Honke anymore, explained to Yuki... when the dog continued, "Oh, he's success with his experiment, but I'll doubt he will do it."

When the mouse asked why, Shigure only smiled, "I thought you'd noticed it, Yuki-kun."

After a very long time... Yuki would add. Akito and Tohru, were a type of a happy couple that preferred understanding, than any relationships. It ached when he realized that; he wondered if the other Junishis felt that too. That only with a smile, Tohru would calm Akito down, and vice versa, like a type of a couple that had passed their golden wedding anniversary. If Akito had had a longer life, their relationship would last forever...  
Just looking at the two of them, Yuki would see a picture of a beautiful life... To erase it, to make one had no more memory of that happiness, was a sin.

Unfortunately, fate was cruel on the Sohma clan leader...

"Infertile sperm, because of body weakness." Akito had said that, half smiling, sadly, when the mouse visited him. Akito had changed, so the others would too, and Yuki had never felt such a complicated emotions towards the kacho, like that time. "I could never have a son. She would never had it from me."

Hiro had told them before, somehow... That the only reason why he had erased Tohru's memories was to delete the 'Honda'-ness in her. He wanted her, but he wanted her more as a 'Sohma', and she gave herself to be a 'Sohma'.  
"You know," Hiro half laughed when he told Yuki that. "She told me, that time, that Akito wanted a child from her... but he doesn't want if it is from a Honda, he wants it from a Sohma."

The Akito he knew maybe had been angry and threw curses, if something that made him realized, that his body was weak; he would have been questioning and blaming the rest of the Junishis for his 'current' condition right then. But this Akito just only smiled, and let it happen, like he had everything in the world for the change of his life, and his masculinity... maybe Tohru was his everything.

"You could just adopt a son." Yuki then said suggestively, he knew that the only thing Sohma family (from any traditional family, for exact), what their ancestors wanted from a kacho, a clan leader, was a chonan, a son that could continue the bloodline of Sohma Honke, and to lead the honke itself. If it was not by bloodline, it could be from an adoption.

Akito shook his head slowly. "Too bad. I was looking forward to have a son of my own." 

Maybe she had made the right decision for them all... They wouldn't see things in that new Point of View, about Akito, about the 'evil' they had thought before, like they were looking at him right then. He was just like a caterpillar, turned into a butterfly...

... short aged butterfly for exact...

Couple of days after he had spoken with the mouse, Akito had died... leaving the world, leaving the rest of the Junishis to live his part of life... leaving a wife behind... Tohru didn't cry... during the long days Kijitsu -the day after someone had died, before the same person had been cremated-, Tohru hadn't shed a single tears. She bowed, saying 'thank you' to all the people who came to pray for Akito's soul.

Of course, the other Junishis, hadn't had anything else, the day Akito died, would be the day of their freedom. They should be happy; If that was the previous Akito, they would do that... but they couldn't... guilty, sadness, and thankful, all were mixed into one.

"Tohru-san," since Tohru had become a different person, especially after she had became Akito's wife, the Junishis started to address her differently. That time, it was Kagura who suddenly stated. "I'm sorry, Tohru-san. I'm so sorry!" Tohru just smiled, but Kagura then only cried and cried. Of course, she was sorry... she felt she too was responsible for Akito's death... because she was one of the Junishi too.

"No, Kagura-san." Tohru shook her head slowly. "If my husband died for you all, if he died for something useful for his family, for his people, I'm sure he would be happy." She stopped for a while, to take a breath. "He had prepared this time for a long time..." Tohru then chuckled at her own accord. "That Akito, he even organized his funeral before... how the flowers would be arranged, and the clothes he would wear..."

The widow laughed, but then... later at the same night when Kagura had said that, when Yuki had offered himself to accompany her back to her room... She only nodded, and walked by her own... when she suddenly stopped, making him halted his steps too. "Tohru-san?"

"Yuki-san, do--- do you think my husband, do you think Akito was happy?" It shocked him to hear that from her mouth. When the girl knew that his question only answered by a silence, she continued. "Had I done anything to him that make him happy? Did I make him happy---? Yuki-san?" Tohru Sohma ducked her head in sadness, but Yuki could still see tears falling from her half closed hazel eyes... like a waterfall...  
"Akito... had been a wonderful husband for me... Akito... Akito is..."

Yuki didn't know if Tohru was like this too when she had lost her mother... But if he could, he hadn't wanted to see the girl into pieces...

"... Yuki," Akito had told him, the last thing they had been talking about before he was gone. "Do you think... I have made Tohru happy?" Yuki didn't replied. He didn't know what to speak. It could be a 'yes' and a 'no'. It would be more a 'yes', but it was not a perfect 'yes'... because Akito only made Tohru Sohma happy... not Tohru Honda.

"Hmph." Akito just smiled, he seemed to know what Yuki was thinking about. "Is that so?" Again, no answer. Akito didn't seem to search for one anyway. "Yuki-kun, do you know why you all can't turn into your cursed animals each time Tohru hugs you?"

Yuki wrinkled his eyebrows... why suddenly the clan leader asked something like that, after all those years?

Akito chuckled. "You still don't understand?" Yuki shook his head, and Akito then said,  
"The time when the scapegoat's of the family fell in love with somebody, was the time for the other Junishi to have some freedom...  
"Yuki, I'd never known that I had loved Tohru... maybe I was attracted of her, but nothing about love... But since I heard from you, I knew somehow that I love her... need her somehow...  
If she could bring me out of my loneliness, she was worth for me till the end of my life...  
I've told her about this, she was meant for me. She understood, because she was also wanted to help me, as myself, as a clan head... she gave me her all...  
"But, Yuki. Do you think I have give my everything to make her happy?"

Silent.

"Akito," Yuki than said. "It was more a rhetorical question."

Akito turned his eyes towards the other man, his lips performing a perfect horizontal line. But Yuki knew, that Akito was happy of his answer; from his eyes, he was very thankful. "Tohru, the Tohru Honda had said to me, that I'm very much alike with Cherry blossoms."

Beautiful.. and had short life...

"I think she was right." Yuki had to admit it... Akito, was a beauty. He was even more beautiful when he had found his purpose in his short life. He was even more beautiful when he had experienced the other side of his previous angst life.

"Is that so?" Akito then smiled... ... ... No need to talk anymore, because silence was golden, and gusts of wind were performing a beautiful dance in that spring, days before Akito had left the world. Akito had trusted something to her,  
"Yuki, if something happens to me, I believe you will take care of Tohru."

Kyou had said the same for him, so did Akito... Akito trusted him. What would he do at times like this...? Usually, Tohru Honda was the giver, she had given all of her to him, to Kyou, to Shigure, to Hatori, to the rest of the Junishis. She was innocent, but with her innocence, she had all the knowledge in the world. She knew how to face life more than anybody...

That Tohru needed him... right 'now'.

"Akito was happy, he was grateful that you were there." Yuki then said, making the girl slowly lifted up her ruined face, showing her wet eyes, the brownish lake of her eyes... needed some affirmation. Yuki just sighed, and repeated what he had said to her. "Akito didn't pick you by coincidence, he didn't pick you from anywhere... you were meant for Akito, Tohru-san." It was aching to say that, since he had needed the girl since long time ago... he had even loved Tohru Honda before Akito...

If Tohru had given her all, her everything for Akito... Yuki would too, he would given his all, his everything to make Tohru Honda... no, Tohru Sohma, happy. Even if she wouldn't give him as much as he wanted...  
In his dreams, she would love her... and the Tohru Honda who had died, the exuberant Tohru Honda, would love him back...  
In the end..  
If only...

-end-

* * *

End Notes (really long one, skip it if you hate authors who talk about themselves)

First, I'm going to say thank you for all these people:

Ohimesama, thank you for the information in Ritsu's characters. Meeting you at AOL IM by coincidence is one thing that made me very thankful. Ritsu's and Akito's part will not finished without you. Thank you for reviewing every time I uploaded (yes, I noticed), and thank you for some conversations we had.  
kaoru, your comments are very funny... thank you very much. sorry if I didn't make this a toriru. But I do have toriru in my mind... (sigh) but not now.   
Jessy, I'd continued as fast as I could, and ended it as fast as I could... hope you like it. thank you very much. Thank you for your comments.  
alexix, you're sick...? (is it about my fic?) thank you very much. well, I only had read one momiji lemon fic and it had made me gape for a long time... Thank you for liking my writings... thank you.  
Ranma Inverse, I never thought I would be somebody's inspiration. Because I'm not that great. Thank you very much for your reviews, for appreciating my freedom.  
The lady of the Nights, well, I've never seen it coming up like this too... guess the plot evolving by itself.  
T_bunny0, well, you had recieved my e-mails about the updates, hadn't you? No, this is not a Toriru, you had seen all.  
suki chan, thank you very much, your reviews sometimes made me laugh. Yes, one can't afford to not like Momiji.  
Haru_fangirl, well, sorry if Hiro's and Akito's part is not kinky as you think, thank you.  
Kiriko, thank you very much.  
otakufan03lovers, thank you, but unfortunately, with my conditions right now, I'm afraid I couldn't write anymore fics for couple of weeks.  
Rin_Souma, (are you also Rin_Sohma?) molested by Sohma guys? hee hee... after you, thank you.  
KT-chan, thank you very much. But's very much a soap opera plot... (sighs)  
No Name, (err, is this really your name?) Thank you.  
Takiko, to think that my fic had made someone cried, made me want to cry myself. I hope the Yukiru here had satisfied you.  
panatlantic, thank you. I'm very happy that I'd written it too, thank you for the engagement word...  
Kisaragi Yuu, yes, I had been looking forward to the toriru chapter too. I'm glad that I'd written that part.  
anon, yes, thank you for pointing me some mistakes. I don't use English very often, so I apologize for your discomfort. Thank you very much.  
Yume, thank you very much if you like it. looking at your name's meaning made me smile everytime I read your review. they're so encouraging.  
Nermal, (lol) I guess the Kyou's part is out already. thank you.  
mou-man, I don't make Tohru pregant because somebody, or because accident. If I could, I would made it because of Akito, and Tohru herself wanted it. Thank you ^^  
hana-san, thank you... Hatori's maybe a charm or something like that.  
Star, thank you very much for checking it everytime you can. I felt very valuable... that's stupid, because I know I don't. I'm very much an Akito fan myself.  
Chira-chira, thank you for pointing the IOC of Shigure. Thank you for the 'engagement' word, the time I read your review, I hit my head.  
Rachel, thank you for pointing 'engagement'. yes, that's right. I'm so stupid to write fiction in English while I don't know engagement.  
SyiveSe, thank you for reviews... I felt myself healed when I read them. Yes, I love Akito x Tohru pairing (beside Toriru and Yukiru)  
Nao, very happy to hear someone like the way I write. I'm glad you're enjoying it. I hope how I make the things resolved don't make you hate me.  
Bonniechan, hmm, you want to know about FruitsBasket? Hmm... I don't know how to write back, because it's very much permitted to be distributed freely in my country, and it was Japanese language, English sub, subbed by local fansub. So I got them from local store... So, I can't help you because of that. Hope the others can...

(Did I miss anyone?) Still I need to again, thank you all for sparing your times for reviewing this little soap opera of mine...  
Things get a little bit rushed in the end, because I want it finished ASAP, some works, (etc) that didn't permit me to write for a matter of weeks, even a month. So, rather than made you all wait for some time, I finished it as soon as I can. I'm sorry if it's too rushed and all...  
I have a thank you gift for you all, it's t http://www.geocities.com/lemonishida/gallery/akitohru.htm I know it is not much, it maybe not good, but with my hand condition, and the lack of time I have to do fanworks, I had done the best...  
About sequel, I maybe have thought of it for a while, when I realized where the plot going, I stopped. This exuberance is had been much a soap opera (by some people), and I realized it myself. To make a sequel about this, is the time when it'll be like a cheap harlequin novels plot... While, I, will keep that little harlequin plot in my mind, for myself... If you want to read that little thing... maybe... later... so, maybe the sequel won't be happening. (No one wants it anyway)

Okay. My friends have a quote that "Febby (me) won't pass a day without saying at least ten times 'I'm sorry'."... So, as well to do my habit, and to apologize, I'm sorry to bother you all with this fic. I'm sorry if it didn't end like you want (beacuse this is my fic, nyah). I'm sorry if I had said something wrong. If you please, can forgive me, I can be very much relieved...

While ending exuberance, the author's listening to Do As Infinity's "tadaima", "GURUGURU", "enrai", Kevin Ceballo's "My First Love".

Thank you for reading 'exuberance',  
Ferrum.  
http://dive.to/ferrum  
lezardflask@anixtreme.com


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